2021 Maine Cheese Festival Winners:
Thank you to everyone who helped make the Maine Cheese Guild’s Annual Maine Cheese Festival such a success! The weather cooperated and we had a great turnout.
Meet the Winners:
Fresh Cheese: ChiGoBee Farm in Pownal for its plain chevre.
Flavored Fresh Cheese: York Hill Farm in Washington for its green peppercorn and nutmeg roll.
Soft Ripened Cheese (Bloomy): Winter Hill Farm in Freeport for its Tideline.
Washed rind cheese: Fuzzy Udder Creamery in Whitefiled for its Cyclone.
Aged natural rind cheese: Balfour Farm in Pittsfield for its Torrin Tomme.
Aged flavored cheese: Balfour Farm in Pittsfield for its Cotswold.
Blue cheese: Spring Day Creamery in Durham for its Fraffie.
To read more about the event and to see photos, visit this article at the Portland Press Herald.
Festival Grounds:
When: Sunday, September 12th, 2021
Session 1: 11am – 2pm
Session 2: 3pm – 6pm
Where: Manson Park
51 Peltoma Ave.
Pittsfield, ME 04967
Meet the Makers
A highlight for many festival attendees is the chance to “meet the makers”. This is your chance to see where your cheese comes from and make some new friends!
The Maine Cheese Guild wants you to love Maine cheese and the Mainers that make it so unique. Our mission is to support and encourage the Maine cheesemaking community, assist cheesemakers in their efforts to produce the best cheese possible, make great cheese more accessible to consumers, and share the joy and art of regional cheeses. As a resource for cheese-lovers everywhere, the Guild offers classes, product information, and organizes community events. For there is much joy to be had, and much cheese to enjoy!
*In order to safely gather per CDC guidelines, we have split the festival into two identical sessions to limit the number of people attending at one time.
Schedule of Events
11:00 am: Festival Gates open for Early Session
11:00 am: Food Trucks available
11:15 am — Welcoming Remarks:
Maine Cheese Guild President Holly Aker and Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Commissioner Amanda Beal
11:00 am – 2:00 pm — Music Stage: Whipporwill Wood
Whippoorwill Wood is a three-piece folk/rock band based in Ellsworth, Maine playing fun songs you know and love, others you don’t know, and others you forgot you love.
11:25 am — Education Tent: What Grows Together, Goes Together: Maine’s Wild Blueberry Wine and Cheese
Pairing food and wine, before globalization, was simple: if it grew together it belonged together on the table. As taste was regional, local flavors that balance and augment each other became the guideposts by which a culture selects its food and drink. Maine’s new style of wild blueberry sparkling wine, a bright, crisp bubbly made from the original, indigenous wild blueberry, seems so familiar and yet it doesn’t imitate other wines. This pure wine is from here and only here. And it is our pursuit, as farmers and makers, to explore the connection between wild blueberry sparkling wine and the wonderful cheeses of Maine–cheeses that refer to the archetypes but are unique and rich with the flavors of our woods, hills and coast.
Presenters:
• Ed Lutjens, production lead at Bluet Maine Wild Blueberry Sparkling Wine
• Laura Flannery, wild blueberry grower, Blue Ox Blueberries
• Tim Woods, freelance cheese monger and experimental winemaker
12:30 pm — Education Tent: Solving Cheese Cooking Mysteries
Have you ever wondered why your cheese sauce came out gritty or clumpy?
Or what to do with that last hunk of cheese from a dinner party?
Have a refrigerator full of leftovers and not sure what to do with them?
Chef Alexi can help!
Come learn some tips and tricks for successfully using cheese in conventional – and unconventional – ways.
We’ll cover why certain cheeses make successful sauces (and why some don’t), the perfect steak and cheese sandwich, a ‘leftover’ frittata, and the cheesiest ‘taco’ you’ve ever eaten.
It’s certain to be a gouda time!
Presented by Maine Cheese Guild Board Member, Alexis (A-lek-see) Godin: Executive Chef and Owner of Alice and Lulu’s Mountainside restaurant
Early Session Attendees depart
2:00 pm — Early Session Closing: Early Session Attendees depart
2:00 pm – 3:00pm Break: Vendors reset displays and ready for second session
3:00 pm: Gates open for Late Session
3:15 pm — Welcoming Remarks:
Maine Cheese Guild President Holly Aker, and the Maine Office of Tourism
3:30 pm — Education Tent: Ask a Cheesemaker Panel
Ask your Maine cheesemakers- do they have a special cheese? How did they become cheesemakers? What’s their favorite cheese to eat? What’s their favorite cheese to make? All your questions answered!
4:00 pm — Education Tent: Solving Cheese Cooking Mysteries
Have you ever wondered why your cheese sauce came out gritty or clumpy?
Or what to do with that last hunk of cheese from a dinner party?
Have a refrigerator full of leftovers and not sure what to do with them?
Chef Alexi can help!
Come learn some tips and tricks for successfully using cheese in conventional – and unconventional – ways.
We’ll cover why certain cheeses make successful sauces (and why some don’t), the perfect steak and cheese sandwich, a ‘leftover’ frittata, and the cheesiest ‘taco’ you’ve ever eaten.
It’s certain to be a gouda time!
Presented by Maine Cheese Guild Board Member, Alexis (A-lek-see) Godin: Executive Chef and Owner of Alice and Lulu’s Mountainside restaurant
5:00 pm — Maine Cheese Awards Ceremony:
Join us for this exciting inaugural event celebrating the best of Maine cheese! Live streamed on Facebook with Christine Burns Rudalevige, Editor – Edible Maine
6:00 Festival Closing
Thank You to all who took part! We look forward to seeing you in 2022!
Contact
(207) 370-7176
events@mainecheeseguild.org