Aries - Shooting Star Creamery

Aries has a fresh, buttermilk flavor and subtle fruitiness that hints on notes of pineapple. The creamy, yet firm, texture and earthy, caramel-like aromas make this sheep's milk cheese stand out among the rest.

Aries is an Alpine-style sheep’s milk cheese with a clean ivory paste like pale marble waiting to be chiseled, dotted elegantly with understated nebulas of crystallization. Somewhere between a Gouda and a Comté, Aries melts in your mouth like cashew butter and lingers with notes of bubblegum, hay, and salty ocean air. Though richer than a Basque sheep’s milk cheese, Aries’ understated balance is refreshing—it feels downright erudite.

Aries is made from pasteurized sheep’s milk using a vegetarian friendly microbial rennet and is aged for over eight months.

This award-winning cheese from Shooting Star Creamery is a nice addition shaved into a salad with fruit or chunked on its own with honeycomb.

Soft-ripened, bloomy sheep milk cheese will unfold and soften their double-cream like behavior all over the shelf as it ripens at room temperature. Its high fat content will stand up well to the slightly warmer temperature of the kitchen counter and the sweetness of the milk will shine.

Semi-hard to dense sheep milk cheeses are often so fatty that they can weep their fats when stored at room temperature. This is something that can be experienced when storing one's aged pecorino on the kitchen counter, but it is something to not be alarmed about.

Sheep milk cheese is delicate as it is robust in texture and in flavor. It will change its character at room temperature, but that is not to necessarily its fault or its downfall. Rather, the flavors of the milk will become more prominent. Simply make sure to store it for seven to ten days under 70 degrees F so the cheese does not weep too much.

Central Coast Creamery owner Reggie Jones asked his daughter, Avery Jones, if she wanted to try her hand at artisan cheese making. Soon, they set up a separate creamery that was based on Central Coast Creamery to allow Avery to take risks with the cheese as well as to have something to base her recipes on.

Shooting Star Creamery, in Paso Robles, CA, was born to reflect Avery and her father's belief of shooting for the stars. And did she ever! At age 15, Avery debuted her cheese Aries at the competitive American Cheese Society awards in 2019, winning 3rd Place overall. With 1,742 entries, we'd say she rocked it!