Beehive Cheese: Utah’s Best Known Artisan Cheese Producer

Editor’s note: Contributor David Phillips recently wrote about flavored cheeses so we asked him to share the story of an artisan producer who makes mostly flavored Cheddars, Beehive Cheese.

Beehive Cheese specializes in rubbed, flavored cheeses and one of very few artisan cheese companies Utah, (the only one headquartered in the tiny city of Uintah).

If you are familiar with Beehive, you probably also know it was founded by two long-time friends and brother-in laws, Pat Ford and Tim Welsh. But what might surprise even those who are fans and friends of this well-established, community-oriented cheese company is that it has a new top executive. Britton Welsh.

New Leadership

At 31, Tim’s son Britton Welsh is now the president of Beehive, a company he has grown up with. “I started at Beehive Cheese by working in the make room for about 8 years making cheese by hand,” he says. “During college, I worked at the farmer's market teaching people about cheese and making friends in the local food scene.” After laying the foundation for a med-school education, Britton changed paths, completed a marketing degree and was drawn back to Beehive. “After some intense soul searching, I realized that my passions are in food and the community building intrinsic to producing artisan cheese,” he says.

For the past five years, he has been involved in the day-to-day decision-making operations of the company, and he also now serves on the board of the American Cheese Society, as his uncle and father have. Pat Ford helped create the organization’s cheese professional certification program, Certified Cheese Professional (CCP).

Beehive Cheese award winners photo credit Beehive Cheese

One Recipe, Many Cheeses

The company’s approach to cheese is a bit unique. They use one simple recipe to turn high quality cow’s milk into a mild, pleasant cheddar. That base cheese is then rubbed with/smoked with/soaked in a variety of real flavor ingredients including whiskey, truffle carpaccio, citrus, apple wood smoke, hatch chilies, desert salt, and mushrooms, to create a palate of interesting cheeses.

The Beehive website describes cheese that turns heads.

“This is a humble cheddar elevated to artisanal greatness through the art of the rubbed rind. Our cheese brings people together and sharing it freely has been linked to an increase in the quality and quantity of friendships.”

Pat Ford with calf photo credit Beehive Cheese

Pat Ford says he once recoiled when consumers called his cheeses interesting. “I took it as a little bit of an insult, but they are right and there is no better word to describe that. And after they have enjoyed it over and over, interesting becomes delightful.”

Beehive Origins

Likewise, the story of how Beehive came to be is interesting. Tim and Pat had been friends since high school. Growing up in Utah, they had run their own landscaping business before launching individual careers in real estate and software development (Tim helped create the software for the 1990s electro-gadget called the Palm Pilot). They were also foodies who fell in love with the cheeses made by pioneer cheesemakers like California’s Cypress Grove Creamery and Oregon’s Rogue Creamery. They wanted to go into the cheese business together, and nearly bought an established farmstead operation in Upstate New York, Pat Ford says. “We thought about it, but we love Utah and were raising families here, so we thought, why not do it in Utah,” he says.

Barely Buzzed cheese — Barely Buzzed photo credit Beehive Cheese

A Happy Accident Led to Flavored Artisan Cheddar in the Beehive State

The name of the cheese operation reflects the state’s nickname the Beehive State, which in turn is a reference to the industriousness of the state’s early settlers. And yes, there is honey involved in some of the cheeses, but you might say that the use of coffee and had more to do with Beehive’s success. Its flagship cheese Barely Buzzed, is rubbed with fine ground espresso beans and lavender.

Ford stands by a story which sounds apocryphal: After deciding to set up in Utah, in 2004 the partners consulted with The Western Dairy Center at Utah State University. The food scientists there had a cheddar recipe, and put the partners in touch with Wadeland South, a fourth-generation family farm and creamery that makes Emmentaler-style cheeses. Wadeland became the milk source, and after eight days of training at the dairy center, Beehive was making cheddars.

“With the recipe we had we were determined to make a clothbound like the Cabot Clothbound that Jasper Hill makes, Ford says. “But we got fissures and we could never get the humidity right.”

The addition of coffee was an afterthought, because Ford’s brother is a roaster and they “had some beans lying around,” the story goes. Lavender was added to balance the bitterness and with the clever name, the rest was history.

Eager to share with and learn from other cheesemakers, Beehive immediately joined the American Cheese Society and California Artisan Cheese Guild. There was no guild in Utah, Ford notes.

While a remarkable British-style bandaged cheddar was never achieved, the newbie cheesemakers were able to make a good cheddar wheel which is now sold as Promontory. Named for the location where the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroad lines linked 150 years ago. “Sweet and creamy with snappy fruity notes,” the company says. That cheese is sold on its own and used as the base for the rubbed cheeses. Rubbed cheeses are of course the bread and butter for a company that now distributes coast to coast and has more than 60 employees.

You might wonder just where do all the ideas for the Beehive flavors come from? From all over, Ford says. “We just kinda pull them out of the blue,” he says. “Utah is known for salt and honey. Redmond Real Salt, mined here in Utah is from an extinct sea, and that’s the only salt we use. We use honey from hives on our own property.” All employees get involved too. The company stages in-house contests where each employee gets a plain wheel to experiment with. Some of the resulting cheeses have made it into production.

Pour Me A Slice photo credit Beehive Cheese

Other flavors representing collaborations and partnerships include Queen Bee Porcini, dusted with mushroom powder from Regalis Foods and Pour Me a Slice, a bourbon-infused cheese made with Basil Hayden.

Looking Towards the Future

Britton Welsh says he is excited about what the future holds for Beehive (a closely held family company, as he describes it) and for artisan cheese in North America.

“Our vision for Beehive Cheese is to continue to grow conservatively. We are debt-averse and take the stewardship of our stakeholders—not only the owners but employees, the community, customers, as well—very seriously.”

He adds, “I love the authenticity present in the artisan cheese community. There are many people who sincerely love their work and have a passion for creating quality cheeses. There have been a lot of changes over the last five years as artisan cheese has matured as an industry. In the next 20 to 30 years, I see lots more people being curious about artisan cheese. As such, I think the community of artisan cheesemakers will need to grapple with the challenges of growing to meet increasing demand, while still balancing the ever-important priorities of making incredible cheeses.”