Jan? Oh, he’s round the back.” Maallust Brew Gary’s brewer points to a bright white building with high, narrow doors. The building, formerly Veenhuizen’s dairy factory, now houses Kaaslust, cheese dairy, and shop run by Jan Cranes. Behind the shop counter, a glass wall affords a great view of the space behind it where cheeses are maturing on long wooden shelves. “This one’s a trial,” said Jan, pointing to a few small cheeses in which hop leaves have been incorporated. “Combined with the beer in the cheese, it might result in another unusual flavor.”
Beer? In cheese? Jan nods. “Have a taste.” He cuts a slice from what at first sight appears to be an ordinary young cheese, matured for six weeks and light yellow in color. Briefly, there is only the robust, creamy sensation of a traditionally made product. But then, suddenly, like a jack-in-the box, the flavor of beer jumps out at you. Subtle but unmistakable.
And subsequently irresistible. “It’s the best-selling cheese at the moment,” Jan says. And that’s hardly surprising. But his other cheeses are also well worth tasting. The Gouda is full-flavored and creamy, a bit buttery. And then there’s his personal favorite, the Torba Casa. Another delight. There’s a story behind the name. “I wanted to name a cheese after the village, but Veenhuizen sounds so ordinary. So I translated it into Italian. Torba is peat (veen) and casa is house. So it became Torba Casa.” He grins. “It cost me a bottle of wine to come up with it, but it was worth it.” While Jan talks about his cheeses, it’s as though the room lights up. He beams as he talks about rennet and starter cultures, various kinds of milk and maturing processes, only to add almost apologetically, “I just love cheese.”
Old factory He’s been involved in cheese-making almost his whole working life. For years, he milked his own cows at his farm in the Frisian village of Oudega, half an hour away from here, and made Hooidammer cheese. But demand increased and Jan did not want to produce on a large scale. So he changed direction, sold the cows and the dairy and went to work as an advisor for farmers wanting to switch to organic production. Along the way, he got involved in the re-designation of vacant buildings in rural areas. That brought him to Veenhuizen, where several buildings from the former farming community lay abandoned and neglected. They included the former dairy factory.
The building, dating from 1903, was drab with flaking paint but Jan saw potential. He started making plans to refurbish the grounds of Maallust, named after the old mill. A cheese dairy would fit nicely in the old dairy factory. “When the restoration was completed, the Government Buildings Agency was looking for people to operate it. To my surprise, they were quite hard to find. People liked the idea but they weren’t enthusiastic about actually running a business there. So I thought, why not rent it myself?” The kegs of beer come from the neighboring Maallust Brewery And that’s what happened.
Jan went back to his old craft of cheese-making. He doesn’t use only cows’ milk. He also buys sheep, goat and sometimes buffalo milk. There are differences between the types of milk, and the consistency varies too. “It depends on the season and the feed the cows are being given. Sometimes the milk is yellowish. Then it’s high in fat. Every now and then, drops of oil and even tiny specks of butter are floating in it. You see those drops of oil later in the cheese, it’s really funny.”
“You see drops of oil in the milk later in the cheese” www.kaaslust.nl
