This cheese from Northern Holland is a typically Dutch-style cheese with some new twists. With a texture and flavor very similar to a young Gouda, Beemster adds a variety of flavoring agents to the mix. Some of them are quite familiar to American palates, like garlic, fine herbs, and black pepper. A less familiar flavor combination stems from a Dutch custom that we recently discovered on a trip to Holland. The Dutch will often spread some mustard on a piece of cheese before eating it.
Dutch mustard has a pleasant kick to it that livens up an otherwise mild cheese.
The mustard variety of Beemster mixes those flavors right into the cheese. The final flavor is nettles. Europeans frequently use nettles to flavor everything from cheese to pasta sauce to condiments. This slightly bitter green adds an interesting depth of flavor to the cheese without dramatically changing its nature. This semi-hard cheese is traditionally matured for five months and then matured under ash for an additional two to three months.