Rolf Beeler

Rolf Beeler is a Swiss affineur known for his raw milk artisan cheeses. He does not make cheese himself but collects terroir-based cheeses from small artisanal cheesemakers and then ages them to create the final product.

Maitre Fromager Rolf Beeler and his Australia/New Zealand importer Tom Merkli

Career

Prior to becoming a cheese specialist, Rolf Beeler was a school teacher and DJ. He opened his own grocery store, where he sold products he liked. Beeler sold his store and started to work directly with cheese makers abroad, including French cheesemaker Bernard Antony.[1]

Beeler turned his house basement into a small cheese cellar and started to age and ripen his favourite cheeses, which he bought from small local producers. Restaurateurs liked his cheeses, the business went up and soon there was not enough space to stock all the wheels of cheese at his house. Later, he came up with a new strategy: he allowed the cheese to ripen at the cheese makers' cellars and educated them on how to handle the process of ripening, visiting them at least once a week to check the product and discuss the further steps of aging.

After succeeding in production of traditional Swiss cheeses, Beeler started to develop new cheese recipes in collaboration with his fellow cheesemakers, wine-washed Hoch Ybrig being the first of many.

World distribution

By the end of the 1990s, Beeler decided to expand to foreign markets and introduced his Sélection Rolf Beeler at the Slow Food Fair Salone del Gusto in Turin, Italy, in 1998.[2][3] Today his Sélection contains eighteen aged raw milk cheeses and can be found on the menus of more than 120 top restaurants in Germany, England, Switzerland, Scandinavia, USA and Australia.[4]

Awards
  • Toggenburger Sélection Rolf Beeler won gold medal at World Cheese Award 2009 held in Gran Canaria.[5]
  • Jersey Blue by Willi Schmid won the gold medal at the 2010 World Jersey Cheese Awards.[6]
  • Max McCalman rated 186 cheeses in his book, “Cheese: A Connoisseur's Guide to the World's Best.” 17 of the top 30 are from Rolf Beeler with the top spot going to Beeler's Sbrinz.

Further reading
  • Max McCalman, 2005. Cheese: A Connoisseur's Guide to the World's Best, 304 pages, ISBN 978-1400050345
  • Flammer, Dominik; Scheffold, Fabian, 2010. "Swiss cheese: origins, traditional cheese varieties and new creations", 343 pages, ISBN 978-3033026162

References
  1. "The Cheese Course" at The Cheese Course, Retrieved on 2013-11-15
  2. "Rolf Beeler" at Great Ciao, Retrieved on 2013-11-15
  3. "Beeler Napfkäse", Wedge in the Round blog, Retrieved on 2013-11-15
  4. "Sélection Rolf Beeler", Sélection Rolf Beeler, The Red Cow, Retrieved on 2013-11-15
  5. "Gold beim World Cheese Award", Toggenburger Tagblatt, Retrieved on 2013-11-15
  6. "Swiss Entry Best at World Jersey Cheese Awards", USJersey.com, Retrieved on 2013-11-15
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