4 Year Aged Gouda Pittig

I know, I know - we just did a post on gouda. I didn't even want to eat this cheese after tasting the last one, Old Amsterdam Aged Gouda. A friend bought it for us, and really I was just being polite tasting it in my kitchen one evening. Let me tell you, friends, this was a whole different gouda animal.

For starters, it looks different:

Gouda Pittig, aged 4 years

Look at that color! Look at the delicious fissures, inclusions, and little crystals of flavor! It reminds me of caramel - it smells like caramel, and has hints of caramel hidden deep within its complex flavor. The cheese is rock-hard, and cleaves like stone into neat little crumbles. 

More about the flavor - it is intense. This is not the same cheese we tried a few weeks ago. The flavor is sharp, reminiscent of whiskey, with subdued sweetness and salt. 

Those little crunchy bits in the cheese? Those are crystalized shards of lactic acid, formed naturally during the aging process. They're like little pop rocks, bursting with flavor. 

The cheese making process starts with regular gouda, which is is a cooked, pressed cheese made of cow's milk. The gouda is then left to age for years, turned every so often by the loving hands of master dutch cheese makers. The result is a marvel of the cheese world, a wheel of dark amber colored, toffee-smelling aged gouda. 

The bottom line: if you want gouda, stick to the AGED gouda - it's amazing, a true cheese experience. Look for gouda that has been aged for 2 or more years. I really disliked regular young gouda, but this stuff is magic.

- Alan