Barkham Blue is made by Sandy and Andy Rose at Two Hoots Cheese, in the village of Barkham on the Berkshire and Hampshire border.
Two things identify it before you taste anything. The round is shaped like an ammonite, and the paste inside is deep gold where almost every other British blue is ivory.
Neither is decoration. The shape comes from the mould it drains in, and the colour comes from the cows.
In This Article
What Is Barkham Blue?
It is a cow's milk blue of about a kilogram, made from pasteurised Channel Island milk and set with vegetarian rennet, under a natural rind that grows its own grey and white surface mould.
The Roses have been making it since 2003, and their daughter Nia now works in the business alongside them.
It is a small operation making one thing well rather than a range, which is unusual enough in British cheese to be worth saying.
The awards back that up. It took gold at the World Cheese Awards in 2017 and again in 2019, gold at the British Cheese Awards in 2018, and Best Blue at the Artisan Cheese Awards in 2024.
Great Taste has given it stars repeatedly, most recently two stars in 2025.
A dairy this size cannot hide a bad batch behind a range, which is the practical meaning of making one thing. Every wheel that leaves is the whole reputation.
It also explains the price. Handmade rounds of a kilogram from bought-in Channel Island milk cost more per kilo than a creamery blue and always will.
Why Is the Paste Gold Instead of Ivory?
The first thing people ask when they see the cut face is whether something has been added to it. The answer is no, and it is worth knowing why the question comes up at all.
Most British milk comes from Holsteins, whose butterfat is close to white, so most British blues have an ivory paste.
Two Hoots uses Channel Island milk, from Jersey and Guernsey cows.
Those breeds pass far more beta-carotene from grass into their butterfat instead of converting it, and carotene is orange. It is the same pigment that makes their cream and butter yellow.
Concentrate that fat into a cheese and the paste comes out the colour of an egg yolk.
Writers who have visited have checked this specifically, because the colour looks additive. No annatto goes anywhere near it.
The practical consequence is that colour is a reliable identification cue here. If a cheesemonger hands you an ivory wedge and calls it Barkham Blue, something is wrong.
The colour is not fixed through the year either, and that is worth knowing rather than worrying about.
Carotene comes from green grass, so milk taken off summer pasture carries more of it than milk from cows on winter forage. The gold runs deeper in cheese made from the summer flush.
Holsteins dominate British dairying for a plain commercial reason: they give more litres. The pale paste on most British blues is a side effect of an economic decision made decades ago.
Fat comes with the same package. Channel Island milk is richer as well as yellower, and that is what makes this paste buttery instead of crumbly.
Nothing is added to make this paste gold. If a counter hands you an ivory wedge and calls it Barkham Blue, something is wrong.
Why Is It Shaped Like an Ammonite?
The shape is the other half of the recognition problem, and it is genuinely unusual: a raised spiral ridge across the top face, like a fossil pressed into the cheese.
It comes from the mould the curd drains in, not from anything done to the finished round.
That matters when you are buying a cut piece rather than a whole one, because the spiral only survives on the top face.
Ask for a piece cut from the top if you want to see it, and accept that a wedge from the middle of a large round will not show it at all.
A second mark often turns up alongside it. There is usually a straight horizontal groove running across the round, left where the piercing needles went in.
Shaping a cheese distinctively solves a problem a small dairy has and a large one does not. A cut wedge on a counter carries no packaging and no label.
Form is the only branding that survives the knife, which is why the spiral is on the cheese rather than on a wrapper.
Eat the rind. The peppery note lives there as much as in the veins, and cutting it away removes half of what separates this from a supermarket blue.
What Are the Needle Holes For?
A blue cheese is not blue because mould landed on it. The culture goes into the milk at the start, and then it sits there doing nothing.
What it is waiting for is oxygen, because Penicillium roqueforti cannot grow in a sealed paste however much of it is in there.
So the round is pierced with long needles, which is done here with a machine that drives a row of them straight down through the cheese.
Air runs down those channels, the mould wakes up along them, and the veining spreads outward from each puncture.
That is why blue veining branches rather than speckling. Every vein is tracing a path back to a hole somebody made on purpose.
It also explains why a maker can decide how blue a cheese becomes. Pierce more, or pierce earlier, and you get more veining.
An unpierced blue stays white indefinitely. The mould is present the whole time and simply never gets the air to do anything with.
Timing is a judgement rather than a date. Pierce a curd that is still too wet and the channels close up behind the needle; leave it too long and the paste is too firm for the mould to spread sideways.
The holes also let carbon dioxide out, which the mould produces as it grows, so the channels work in both directions.
Once you know this, the veining pattern on a cut face becomes readable. Dense branching near a line of holes and sparse blue away from it is a normal, well-made cheese rather than an uneven one.
What Does It Actually Taste Like?
The word every description reaches for is buttery, and for once it is doing real work rather than filling space.
The paste is smooth and melts on the tongue instead of breaking into crumbs, which is the opposite of what a Stilton does.
The blue arrives second and stays subtle. There is a peppery tang along the veins and in the rind, but it does not build into the sharp metallic bite that puts people off strong blues.
Age changes it in one direction. Young, it is firmer and denser with a grassy note; held longer, it softens and gets steadily more buttery.
Neither state is the correct one, so it is worth asking a counter which they have before you commit.
Eat the rind. The peppery note lives there as much as in the veins, and cutting it off removes half of what distinguishes this from a supermarket blue.
The texture has a practical use as well. A paste that spreads rather than crumbles goes onto bread in one piece, which a Stilton will not do.
Who Is This Cheese Actually For?
This is the blue to buy for someone who says they do not like blue cheese, and that is not a backhanded compliment.
The thing most people object to in blue is the sharp saline bite at the back of the mouth, and this cheese does not have much of it.
What it has instead is fat and a gentle tang, which is a far easier thing to eat a whole wedge of.
It is the wrong buy in one situation. If you want a blue that fights back against a steak or dominates a dressing, this is not it and something sharper will do the job better.
It is also not a cooking cheese at this price. Melting it into a sauce wastes almost everything you paid for in a premium handmade blue.
If you are serving it to someone who thinks they hate blue cheese, give them a piece with rind attached and no accompaniment first.
The usual mistake is burying it under chutney, which hides exactly the buttery part that would have changed their mind.
What Should You Drink With It?
The classic pairing works and there is no reason to be clever about it. Port is what the shops that sell this cheese recommend alongside it.
Sweet wine does the same job through a different route, and Monbazillac, Sauternes and Tokaji Aszú all get named by people who sell it.
Malbec is the red that gets suggested, which fits a cheese with more fat and less salt than a classic blue.
Get the temperature right and the choice of drink becomes a detail. Serve it at cool room temperature, somewhere around 18 to 23 degrees, and give it half an hour out of the fridge.
Put it on a board before the pudding rather than after, and keep the accompaniments plain: good bread, plain crackers, a pickle if you want one.
The reason sweet drinks work with blue is that sugar mutes the perception of salt, so the fruit reads louder and the saline edge reads quieter.
Tannic dry reds do the reverse and are the classic mistake. Tannin and salt sharpen each other, and a big Cabernet will make a mild blue taste harsh.
| Pairing | Type | Why It Works |
|---|---|---|
| Vintage port | Drink | The pairing the sellers recommend first. Sweet dark fruit against a salty paste, and enough alcohol to clear the fat between bites. |
| Monbazillac or Sauternes | Drink | Sweet white wine reaches the same balance more gently, which suits a blue this mild better than a heavy port does. |
| Tokaji Aszu | Drink | More acid than the French sweet wines, so it cuts rather than coats. Good if the piece you have is on the mature, softer side. |
| Malbec | Drink | The red that gets named for this cheese. It works because the cheese is buttery rather than aggressive; a sharper blue would flatten it. |
| Plain bread and crackers | Accompaniment | Nothing sweet on the plate. The wine is already supplying the sugar, and chutney on top of it buries the cheese. |
How Does It Sit Against Other British Blues?
Britain has a lot of blue cheese and most of it is trying to do something other than this, so the comparisons are worth making explicitly.
The protected Midlands blue is the obvious reference point and the clearest contrast: bigger, drier, crumblier, ivory rather than gold, and considerably sharper.
The Devon sheep blue differs at the milk rather than the method, which gives it a sweeter and more mineral character than any cow blue reaches.
For what blue cheese is in general and how the veining works across the family, the wider category covers ground this page does not repeat.
The pressed Devon blue shows the other lever a maker can pull, since pressing the curd changes the structure the veins have to travel through rather than changing the milk.
Across the Atlantic, the Vermont blue is the closest thing in intent, built for restraint rather than force, though it gets there through a drier paste instead of a richer one.
The short version is that this is the mildest and the fattiest of the group, and the only one you can identify across a counter by colour alone.
| What differs | What it means when you eat it |
|---|---|
| Channel Island milk against mostly Holstein | Deep gold paste instead of ivory, and noticeably more fat. |
| About a kilogram against a much larger wheel | A higher share of rind to paste, so the peppery rind note is easier to reach. |
| Smooth and buttery against dense and crumbly | It melts on the tongue rather than breaking into pieces on the board. |
| Subtle tang against a firm saline bite | Easier for someone who avoids blue, weaker if you want a blue to dominate a dish. |
What Do You Get When You Buy It?
A whole cheese is about a kilogram, which is more than most households want, so the normal purchase is a cut piece from a counter.
Look for a paste that is genuinely gold rather than pale yellow, veining that branches rather than sits in dots, and a rind that looks rustic and slightly uneven.
Shelf life is short for a blue. Retailers selling it by post quote around twelve days from despatch, so it is not a cheese to buy far ahead of the occasion.
Keep the cut face in waxed paper rather than plastic film, on the warmest shelf of the fridge, and eat it rather than storing it.
SOURCES & REFERENCES
Barkham Blue FAQ
The colour, the shape and the strength are the three things the sections above leave a reader wanting stated plainly.
No. The deep gold paste comes from Channel Island milk, whose butterfat carries far more beta-carotene than milk from a Holstein herd. Nothing is added.
The spiral ridge is formed by the mould the curd drains in. It sits on the top face only, so a wedge cut from the middle of a round will not show it.
Not by blue-cheese standards. It is buttery with a subtle peppery tang and lacks the sharp saline bite of a mature Stilton, which is why it is often the blue recommended to people who avoid them.
