The best British cheeses to try beyond cheddar form a roll call most countries would envy: Stilton, Wensleydale, Red Leicester, Caerphilly, Lancashire, Cornish Yarg, Stinking Bishop. Britain makes over 700 named cheeses, and while there’s nothing wrong with a good mature cheddar (it’s popular for a reason), stopping there is like visiting London and only seeing the airport. Here’s where to start your tour.

What Are The Best British Cheeses To Try Beyond Cheddar: Essential Tasting List

• Stilton (blue): the king of British blues, and the only cheese with its own certification body and EU-protected status history. Creamy, minerally, with a peppery bite. Colston Bassett is the connoisseur’s pick. Serve with port and walnuts, or crumble over a steak.
• Wensleydale (crumbly): Yorkshire’s pride — fresh, lemony, crumbly, famously paired with fruit cake (don’t knock it). The younger versions are mild and milky; aged ones develop real character.
• Red Leicester (hard): like cheddar’s sweeter, nuttier cousin with a gorgeous sunset-orange colour from annatto. A proper cloth-bound Red Leicester aged 9+ months is a revelation next to the bland supermarket blocks.
• Caerphilly (crumbly): the Welsh miners’ cheese — light, fresh, slightly salty, with a lemony tang. Gorwydd Caerphilly from Somerset (yes, really) is the artisan benchmark.
• Lancashire (crumbly/creamy): comes in three ages — Creamy (young, mild, buttery), Tasty (aged, tangy), Crumbly. The traditional multi-day ‘tasty’ Lancashire is one of Britain’s great cheeses.
• Cornish Yarg (semi-hard): wrapped in nettles, which sounds like a gimmick until you taste it — fresh, lemony, mushroomy under the rind. One of the prettiest cheeses in the world too.
• Stinking Bishop (washed rind): the infamous one — washed in perry, smells like a rugby changing room, tastes like heaven. Creamy, meaty, complex. Buy it for the story, rebuy it for the flavour.
• Bath Blue / Devon Blue / Harrogate Blue: Britain’s artisan blue scene goes way beyond Stilton. Bath Blue is creamy and mellow; try several and find your favourite.

How to Build a British Cheese Board

Five cheeses is the sweet spot: one hard (Red Leicester), one crumbly (Wensleydale or Caerphilly), one blue (Stilton), one soft/washed (Stinking Bishop or a Cornish brie), and one wild card. Take cheeses out of the fridge an hour before serving — cold mutes flavour dramatically. Accompaniments: oatcakes and good crackers, chutney or quince, grapes or apple slices, walnuts. That’s it. No need for fifteen condiments competing with the cheese.

Where to buy

Supermarkets actually stock decent British cheese now — look for cloth-bound, farmhouse, or PDO/PGI labels. But a proper cheese shop or deli counter is worth seeking out: they’ll let you taste before you buy, which is the whole point. Many UK farm shops have excellent cheese counters with local producers you’d never find elsewhere.

For the deep history, Wikipedia’s list of British cheeses is remarkably comprehensive, and the Academy of Cheese offers structured tasting guidance if you want to get serious about it.

Start with three you’ve never tried, taste them properly at room temperature, and pay attention to what you like. Britain’s cheese heritage was nearly wiped out by industrialisation — every farmhouse cheese you buy is a small vote for keeping it alive. Delicious civic duty, really.

British Cheese FAQs

How should I store cheese at home?
Wrap in wax paper or cheese paper (not cling film — cheese needs to breathe), then loosely in a bag, in the fridge’s warmest spot (usually the vegetable drawer). Cling film suffocates cheese and makes it taste of plastic. Good cheese paper is a small investment that pays off immediately.

How long before serving should cheese come out of the fridge?
At least an hour — cold mutes flavour dramatically. A Stilton eaten fridge-cold versus room temperature barely seems like the same cheese. This single habit improves every cheese you ever eat.

What’s the difference between Stilton and other blue cheeses?
Stilton has PDO protection — it can only be made in three counties to strict standards. It’s creamier and more complex than most blues, with a distinctive minerally tang. The blue veining comes from Penicillium roqueforti, the same family as Roquefort.

Are British cheeses suitable for vegetarians?
Many aren’t — traditional cheeses use animal rennet. Look for ‘vegetarian’ on the label; most supermarkets now stock vegetarian versions of major cheeses, and artisan makers increasingly specify. Always check if it matters to you or your guests.

Beyond the Cheese Board

British cheese isn’t just for boards — it’s a cooking ingredient of the highest order. A proper Caerphilly makes the ultimate Welsh rarebit. Lancashire is the traditional (and best) cheese for cheese-and-onion pie. Stilton melted into a steak sauce, or crumbled over roasted pears with walnuts, is restaurant-level cooking with three ingredients. And a toastie made with aged Red Leicester will recalibrate your expectations of what a cheese sandwich can be.

The deeper pleasure: visiting the makers. Many British cheesemakers — from Wensleydale in Yorkshire to the small goat farms of the West Country — welcome visitors, run tastings, and sell at prices that embarrass London delis. A cheese pilgrimage through the Dales or Somerset is one of the great British food trips, and you’ll never look at a supermarket block the same way again.

The Bottom Line on British Cheese

Britain makes over 700 cheeses, and most people eat three of them. That’s the opportunity: every farmhouse cheese you try is a small adventure, and the quality at the top end rivals anything in France or Italy. Start with the list in this guide — Stilton, Wensleydale, Red Leicester, Caerphilly, Yarg, Stinking Bishop — and taste them properly, at room temperature, with nothing but good crackers.

Then go deeper: find a proper cheese shop, let them guide you, visit a maker if you can. Britain’s cheese heritage was nearly wiped out by industrialisation; every artisan cheese you buy is a vote for keeping it alive. It’s delicious civic duty — the rare cause where doing the right thing tastes of Stilton and port. The cheddar will always be there. The adventure starts beyond it.

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