Almnäs Tegel

Made on the Almnäs Estate, on the shores of Lake Vattern, in Western Sweden. The estate is a mix of forest and organic fields, which gives the dairy herd high-quality nourishment and a pasturage with great biodiversity. Cheese was made here from the 1830s until 1961, and was revived in 2008.

The form of this cheese was inspired by the handmade bricks that have been made locally since the 1750s. The workers would leave the bricks out in the sun to dry, and their children would run over them as they played. The brick floor in the attic of the manor house bears the imprints of the children that played on the estate centuries ago, and this is what inspired the cheesemakers to stamp each cheese with this distinctive mark.

This cheese may look like a hefty brick, but the paste is sweetness itself. The cheeses are turned, brushed and washed for at least sixteen months to develop their deep, rich flavours of caramel and butterscotch.

*A whole Almnäs Tegel weighs approximately 27kg. Smaller weights are a cut of a whole cheese.