- The World Cheese Awards announced the Maine winners in their annual competition!Crooked Face Creamery: Super Gold for their Plain Whole Milk Ricotta AND Bronze for their Applewood Smoked Ricotta
Lakin’s Gorges/East Forty Farm: Silver for their Opus 42
Josh Pond Farm: Bronze for Meddymoon
Congratulations to all our winners. 265 judges ranked them from over 5,200 cheeses from 46 countries!
Author Archives: News & Updates
2025 Maine Cheese Awards Winners Announced
Find Full List fo Maine CheeseAwardswinners HERE.
BEST IN SHOW:



IT’S A TIE!! FOR BEST OF SHOW:
Fuzzy Udder Creamery-Polar Vortex
Spring Day Creamery- Evangeline
Thanks to everyone who joined us! Join us next year on September 13, 2026 for our Tenth Annual Maine Cheese Festival!
Capercaillie Cheesemaking Workshops
Offered by Caitlin Hunter, Capercaillie Consulting
Learn more about our workshops here.
Italian Fun – Mozzarella & Ricotta
October 1,2025 – 10 AM to 4 pmzPM Italian Fun! Mozzarella and Ricotta are two iconic cheeses of Italy, and so easy to make! You will learn how to make both in this hands-on class, and go home with cheese you have made!
$100/person – Sign up here.
Basics of Home Cheese Making – Two day course
We are offering 3 dates for this popular course, and need at least three signups to run each session- so convince your cheese loving friends to sign up too!
August 20 & 21, or October 8 & 9 r November 5 & 6 – 10 AM – 4 PM — This hands-on workshop in basic home cheese making. In this two-day workshop we’ll be using simple equipment you may already have at home to make a jack cheese the first day, press overnight, then finish the second. In addition, we will also make feta, yogurt, a lactic cheese, quick mozzarella, and ricotta, depending on the interests of the class. This workshop will concentrate on basic cow cheeses using Springdale Farm cow milk but will also delve briefly into goat cheese. Basic use of ripening cultures and rennet and milk chemistry will be covered. You will go home with cheese that you’ve made!
$300/person, $500/a couple. – Sign up: Here for AUGUST – – Here for OCTOBERr –Here for NOVEMBER
Intro to Hard Cheese – Day and a half course
September 24 & 25, 10 AM – 4PM & 10 AM – Noon. – In this day-and-a-half class, we will spend the first day making one hard cheese, but along the way we’ll discuss the different steps that go into making a hard cheese, and how a slight change here or there will result in a totally different cheese. We’ll discuss the differences between milks, starter cultures, rennet, pH, aging and rind development. We will press it overnight, then finish the next morning.
$200 – Sign up here.
Location: 18 Spring Street, Belfast Maine.
Learn more and sign up at Capercaillie Consulting.
Caitlin Hunter, former owner of Appleton Creameryhas decades of experience as a cheesemaker operating a farm and creamery in Appleton Maine until several years ago. Tody she offers consulting as Capercaillie Consulting, consulting and cheesemaking classes as well as working for Springdale Farm/State of Maine Cheese in Waldo Maine. Caitlin envisioned and was a founder of the Maine Cheese Guild in 2003.

