Taste Test: Delightfully Smelly Cheeses

Uptown Funk: What’s that smell? Indiana’s most pungent and delicous cheeses, ripe for the picking.
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Ameribella
Jacobs & Brichford (Connersville)
Inspired by the cheeses of Northern Italy, Jacobs & Brichford’s milky, pungent award-winner is encased in a salty rind that gives each bite a pleasant hint
of gritty crunch.

Wabash Cannonball
Capriole (Greenville)
Beneath this wrinkly rind is a silky chèvre that will add some character to your spinach salad, but good luck resisting the urge to eat it straight from the wooden board in tiny wedge mouthfuls. Ripened just 10 days, the Cannonball pairs well with sweet fruits or a glass of Moscato.

Riverbend Blue
Traders Point Creamery (Zionsville)
This semi-soft cheese slices like cheddar and has a subtle, vaguely smoky flavor. It’s the perfect gateway stinky cheese for the rank-averse.

Chicory
Tulip Tree Creamery (Indianapolis)
It looks complex with its pockets of ashy-blue mold. And its aroma is distinct—let’s say, barnyard. But this soft-ripened cheese is smooth in both texture and flavor. Pair it with honey on a hunk of rosemary bread.

O’Banon
Capriole
A wheel of goat cheese packaged in bourbon-soaked chestnut leaves, the O’Banon has a thick, spreadable texture and surprising ricotta sweetness.

Foxglove
Tulip Tree Creamery
The Foxglove is ugly. There is no way around that. But underneath that gooey, pale-orange exterior is a scoopably creamy mess that is just delicious. Washed in Hubbard & Cravens Porter from Thr3e Wise Men Brewing Company, it has the sharp, yeasty notes of a college dorm party.