Breaking Regional Cheese News Sage Derby Comes Home!

We’ve got some exciting news! Hartington Creamery in the Derbyshire Dales has welcomed home back to Derbyshire the UK and the world’s oldest brand of Sage Derby with the acquisition of Fowlers Cheese Makers.

Hartington Creamery has acquired Fowlers Cheese, and their famous and fabulous Sage Derby is being made at our Pikehall Farm Creamery. Like our Derbyshire Stilton, we are the only Derbyshire makers of this historic cheese, and the Fowler family can trace their history of cheese-making back fourteen generations to 1670.

Pictured here is Adrian Fowler handing over the reins and recipes for his families Sage Derby Cheese to our Head Cheesemaker, Diana. The burning question you will ask is, when can we get our hands on this cheese? We have batches maturing and are a couple of weeks from being ready. Follow our page and sign up for our newsletters, save 15% off your first order and be the first to taste this regional wonder being made in its ancestral county. Newsletter sign up is at the bottom of our website home page.

The Fowler family invented Sage Derby back in 1670 when it was initally only made for harvest and Christmas festivities. The family moved away from Derbyshire in 1898 and finally this cheese has come back home to Derbyshire. Sage Derby is a hard pressed cheese, firm, open and creamy texture, with a wonderful sage aroma from the fresh sage herb infused into the curd which produces a toasty sage clean flavour. As an arisan hand made cheese it has seasonal colour variations, and the sage will appear as either layered centrally or fully blended.

A traditional cheese totally unique to Derbyshire, it has been made in Warwickshire for many years and returns home to Derbyshires most famous and still artisan Cheesmakers to be made again with milk from our wonderful Dales.

More information will follow about the Fowlers Sage Derby which will be ready as it always has been since 1670 for Christmas.

Made in small batches using Derbyshire Dales milk our Fowlers Sage Derby is made in 6kg moulds and hard pressed with fresh sage blended into the curd. We use a 350-year-old family recipe to produce this unique regional cheese. The cheese will be available in 160g wedges and 1.5kg half moons. and 3kg wheels.