Today’s cheese selection is the classic British cheese, Red Leicester. Red Les (easier to type!) is really pretty. The color originally came from carrot or beet juice (would be fun to taste one still made with them!), but now it is usually (as in the case with this one) comes from the addition of annatto. It is made similarly to cheddar, but Red Les is hard and crumbly. It’s salty (mmmmm…salt) and nutty and crumbly at first, but then as you chew it, the crumbly bits soften and massage your taste buds. It’s very clean tasting with the teensiest smoky aftertaste. It pairs extremely well with mango!
This Somerdale Red Les tastes like a fairly mature Red Les, with a nice tang. It appears to be a farmhouse version with the telltale cloth marks on the rind. Farmhouse makers will mature it in cloth, the old way, to allow better flavour development says Wikipedia. And whoever wrote that must know, being British and spelling flavor “flavour”.
This Red Les is a cheese that I think would go very nicely with a beer — not too dark of a beer, you want something to contrast with the light, nutty taste of the cheese. Maybe a pint or two of lager and a packet of crisps with it. 
The Somerdale Red Leicester is $19.99/lb at WF. Very lovely, I give it four curds!
