Product Profile:

Description:

Coolea is a gouda style cheese with a bright yellow wax rind and smooth, dense texture. It is a seasonal cheese, made between March and October, however because it is matured for as long as two years it is available all year round. Generally we sell Coolea somewhere between eighteen months and two years old and its flavour is reminiscent of caramel. It is possible to buy Coolea from some suppliers at as little as four months old. At this age however, the cheese does not have very much flavour.

Dicky’s parents Dick and Helene Willems moved from Holland to Ireland in the late 1970s. They started making Coolea on their own farm in 1981, and the business was fully established by 1986. In 1998 their son Dicky took over the cheese making. Until then they had been using milk from their own herd, but at this point it became more manageable to start buying in milk. Dicky buys milk from two farms, one of which is further away but on drier land, and better during the wetter weather at the beginning and end of the season. The cheeses made from this milk tend to be sold younger. The other is close by, on wetter land and provides better milk in the summer when the weather is drier. The cheese made from this milk tends to be capable of maturing for longer and has a more interesting and intense flavour.