Hamilton-made cheese named best in Canada at World Cheese Awards

A Hamilton cheesemaker is utterly thrilled after winning a handful of awards - including Best Canadian Cheese - at the World Cheese Awards.

Tor Krueger, owner of Udder Way Artisan Cheese Co., took home two bronzes, two silvers and a super gold at the event he called the Michelin awards of the cheese industry."

Besides the podium placements, his oveja negra cheese was named world's best firm sheep milk cheese," he said, and beat out 73 Canadian entries to win best cheese nationally. Thirty-eight Canadian cheeses won awards.

So, what does it take to be the best cheese in Canada?

Krueger half-jokingly calls his oveja negra cheese mancherino"-style - a cross between manchego and pecorino."

His sheep milk is sourced from a local farm: Ovino in Acton.

The cheese is made in the traditional, old European way," Krueger said. It is vat pasteurized, brined and soaked in extra virgin olive oil.

We also have these cheese moulds that are quite old and have a unique pattern on them, so the cheese looks interesting as well," Krueger said.

Oveja negra has to be aged for at least six months to get the full flavour," Krueger said. The batch he sent into the competition was seven months old.

The annual World Cheese Awards, hosted by the Guild of Fine Food, were originally scheduled to be held in Ukraine, Krueger said, but were moved to Wales.

Krueger, whose been making cheese at his Hannon creamery since 2016, sent in five of his cheeses to the annual competition.

Pragmatically, he said he thought maybe we might get a placement, or something."

Instead, all five of his Guernsey cow- and sheep-milk cheeses made the podium.

Contest judges placed the oveja negra entry into the top 98 cheeses - out of 4,434 entries from 42 countries.

From there, Krueger said, a group of judges picked the world's best cheese, which ended up being a Swiss Gruyere.

But we were part of that last round of judging, which was an honour in itself," Krueger said.

Jeremy Kemeny is a Hamilton-based web editor at The Spectator. Reach him via email: jkemeny@thespec.com