November 2023

Goat Rodeo Farm & Dairy

with essays by Andy Fusia

About Goat Rodeo

The domestication of goats by modern humans is thought to have occurred around 8,000 BCE. For more on that check out GOAT DOMESTICATION or HOW GOATS LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE HUMANS. For now let’s jump forward about 10,000 years to Allison Park, Pennsylvania 2015. Our friends India and Steve Loevner have taken home the pregnant first and second place winners of a goat show, Evie and Chrystal. In time, each goat has two kids, leaving the Loevners with half a dozen goats and plenty of milk to start making cheese. This is no small decision, tens of thousands of dollars will be put into equipment and years will pass before any sort of profit can be seen. Many who enter the artisan cheese industry never see their visions pan out. Nevertheless, they decide if all goes to plan the juice will be worth the squeeze. (The milk will be worth the cheese?)

The Loevners started Goat Rodeo Farm & Dairy in 2015 and have since expanded into an internationally recognized farmstead cheese producer. They are now home to about 140 Nubian and Alpine goats. Their list of accolades is long and impressive. I was there when Bamboozle tied for Runner up Best in Show at the 2022 American Cheese Society Conference in Portland, Oregon. At the ACS industry professionals of all kinds come together to eat, drink, and party like it’s the end of the world. Because of this, I did not make it to the awards ceremony that morning. I do remember congratulating Steve later on that day though, and their win felt very cathartic and hangover-curing. Since then, they have been featured in the New York Times and graced the cover of Culture Magazine, which in the cheese world is basically like the cover of Rolling Stone!

My first visit to Goat Rodeo was with the Chantal’s Crew on June 10, 2019 (about 10,019 years after the start of this story). Our purpose was to have some fun, meet some goats, and put faces to names. As a city dweller, this was a day of many firsts. If you’ve ever been to a rural area you will know, they don’t really care about marking roads out there and GPS chooses the most inconvenient times to stop working. As my reception dwindled, I drove up a winding rocky road hoping a bastion of cheese was waiting for me. I spotted a farmhouse and a few other buildings, and quickly realized I was in the right place. Being the first one of our crew to arrive, I wasn’t quite sure where to go, but the big blue barn with their logo on it seemed like a safe bet. I exited my car to the sounds of goats bleating, which if you haven’t heard can sound like a man screaming bloody murder. Coming from their strange little heads though, it is very funny. There is something special about baby goats. They are endlessly playful, they jump in a silly way, and they love to gum at your hands. During this visit I had the privilege of holding a baby goat for a photo and it promptly emptied its bladder on me. Farm life, baby! I was given a different goat who showed a little more continence and our photoshoot resumed. While learning to milk goats we were told we could shoot milk directly into our mouths. Straight from the teat. I am not squeamish by any means, but drinking milk from an udder mere inches from a goat’s ass was a bit much for me. Anais did not share such qualms!

Their production facility is down a small incline from the barn by design to take advantage of gravity in pooling the milk together in the centralized bulk tank. After the milking parlor, we made our way down to see where the cheese is made. Entering, we all put on hairnets and boots to minimize risk of contamination. First on the right was the vat room, which has that indoor-pool-in-winter humidity to it, if the chlorinated water was replaced with the sweet smell of cooked milk. We got to see the massive wire knives cutting, spinning, and separating curds from whey and the hydraulic press used to squeeze moisture from the soon to be wheels of cheese. We then were shown their brine tank, a delicate ecosystem of salt and water about the size of a coffin, in which those same proto-wheels take overnight baths to ferment and soak up the salt. Next we were on to the waxed cheese aging room down the hall. Wheels of Hootenanny at different stages in their life cycles line the shelves. The uniformity is pleasing, like freshly stocked grocery store aisles. These wheels wait patiently under the meticulous care of masters for months. So much more time and care goes into these delicious wheels than we typically care to appreciate. Hopefully this box can change that. We thanked the Loevners for their hospitality and departed from their goat oasis back to the city with a greater respect for the art of cheesemaking.

GOAT DOMESTICATION or HOW GOATS LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE HUMANS

To give us a deeper appreciation of the chèvre in our bellies and in our fridge, I think it’s helpful to know a little about where this all started. How did people befriend these other animals and convince them to surrender their freedom and what is meant to be food for their young? It seems completely unnatural, but it turns out the agreement can lead to mutually beneficial results (under the right circumstances). 

Goats are thought to be one of the first ruminants domesticated by humans. This most likely occurred 10000 years ago in Anatolia (present day Turkey) and the Zagros Mountain range in present day Iran. Archaeologists are able to estimate these dates by the proximity of fossils to early farming communities in the area, as well as comparing DNA preserved in ancient remains. Much like Neolithic Man, goats took to these rugged mountains to escape predators less suited for the terrain.The plants that grow here need to be as tough as the terrain to survive, which causes goats to become expert browsers. Eating these aromatic plants imparts flavors to their milk which create desirable complexities in cheese made from it. A specialized four-compartment stomach is needed to digest this ruffage, the first chamber of which being the rumen (for which ruminant animals are named). The rumen is responsible for microbial fermentation and is crucial for proper digestion and cheese making (but we’ll get there in a second!). 

There is an old fable in the cheese world that some ancient human was using a calf’s stomach as a bag to hold milk while on a journey. Along the way they went to take a sip, only to discover it had curdled! Unbeknownst to them, that stomach contained rennet that is used in cheesemaking to coagulate milk to this day. Cheese is discovered. Fun story, right? WRONG! With a little more thought we realize the logical holes throughout it. Human adults at this time were savagely lactose intolerant. This lactose intolerance is an evolutionary development to ensure that milk can be a dedicated food source for babies. What is the more likely scenario, is that when young ruminants were slaughtered, their abomasums contained the milk that had curdled from the natural fermentation happening in their guts. This sort of fresh cheese was probably seen as a viable food source for early human adults long before their guts were able to handle fresh milk.

Obviously, domestication as it exists today did not happen overnight. With our relatively short life-spans, it is hard to wrap our brains around processes that span thousands of years with these tiny selective changes over generations. Basically though, domestication began with hunting of wild goats (Capra aegagrus). Hunters realized it was much easier to herd these wild goats, slaughter those that were overly aggressive, and selectively breed those with desirable traits. These traits could include everything from their milk production, size, color, docile nature, fertility, and even cuteness. Goat’s with genetic predisposition to shed their fear of humankind, group together, accept feed and reproduce quickly became the ancestors of the various breeds we know today. The two breeds Goat Rodeo primarily houses are Alpine and Nubian goats. Alpine goats made their way to Northern Europe and Scandinavia via Danube River pastoral society migration 4000-5000 years ago, but still share many genetic similarities to fossils found at Western Neolithic sites. Similarly, Nubian share much of their DNA with those found at Southern Neolithic sites. Although all of the cheese included in this box are local to Pittsburgh, in an epigenetic way they are a triangulation of Africa, Europe, and Appalachia.

… and now onward to the cheeses!

Fresh Chèvre

Milk: Pasteurized goat
Rennet: Vegetarian
Age: Fresh
Ingredients: Pasteurized goat’s milk, salt, vegetarian rennet, culture
Texture/profile: soft and creamy. Light and lemony with notes of sun warmed fields
Pairing idea: Literally anything! Try some with each and every accoutrement in this box

Sometimes simplicity is best. We are so lucky to have such a perfect, versatile goat cheese being made so close to our home here in Pittsburgh! To produce a remarkable cheese, you need remarkable milk. With every bite you can truly taste happy goats grazing in sun-warmed fields. Once the girls head back into the barn from pasture, they are led into the milking parlor twelve at a time. This is their favorite time of day, because they receive a treat during milking. If you have a pet, think of how they react when you go for the treat bag. While they enjoy their snack, they are providing us with the basis of what will become many of our favorite snack.

In the parlor, their udders and teats are sanitized and inflations are gently attached for milking. After a short time the goats are led back to the barn for a long drink of water, and inevitably more hay. The milk goes into bulk tanks in the milk house where it chills. On a cheese make day, this milk is transported by way of gravity from the bulk tanks into the cheese vat. Their production facility was intentionally built downhill from the milking parlor for this purpose.  The gravity flow method is much easier on the milk than your typical pressurized pumping would be, beneficial bacteria can die off in the pumping process. While in the vat, the milk is pasteurized using Low Temperature pasteurization, during which milk is heated to 145 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes. 

This greatly differs from higher temperature methods including Ultra Pasteurization where milk is heated to a minimum of 280 degrees F for just two seconds.  Low Temp Pasteurization is a sort of goldilocks process between using raw milk, and the insanely high temps of Ultra Pasteurization and similar methods that basically flash cook all beneficial and flavorful bacteria out of milk. 

After pasteurization, the milk is cooled and cheese-specific cultures and rennet are added. It sits overnight in the vat and is then scooped into chèvre draining bags. On the third day once the proper amount of moisture has drained, salt is mixed in and it is packaged. What remains is not so different from what early humans sustained themselves with thousands of years ago. Fresh cheese is a testament to simplicity. Milk, salt, and culture. I always have some in my fridge and you should too. Crumble in a salad, smear a dollop on a bagel, or whip with your favorite fruit and honey for a sweet spread. There is no end to the ways you can enjoy fresh chevre.

Bamboozle

Milk: Pasteurized goat & cow
Rennet: Vegetarian
Age: 2 months
Ingredients: Pasteurized goat & cows milk, salt, vegetarian rennet, culture, beer for washing
Texture/profile: Supple, semi soft with notes of cured ham and peanuts
Pairing idea: Charlito’s Campo Seco Salami

Bamboozle has been around since the beginning of Goat Rodeo. It was originally 100 percent goat’s milk and until fairly recently was produced in loaf molds. Bamboozle was always a good cheese, but at a certain point India and Steve decided with some minor adjustments they could have a great cheese. Zach, one of their cheesemaker’s at the time, decided where else to go for inspiration but Chantal’s Specialty Cheese Shop. 

He stopped by semi-frequently for a few weeks to try our selection of washed-rinds, narrowing down in what direction they wanted to take the cheese. The one that seemed to most inspire Bamboozle’s makeover was Ciel de Chèvre. It is a raw, washed rind goat’s milk cheese from Belgian producer La Fermière de Méan. Ciel de Chèvre has many diehard fans (including myself) that will put it up there with their favorite cheeses of all time. If you enjoy Bamboozle, and I’m sure you will, I highly recommend coming to the shop to give Ciel de Chèvre a try (or see if your local cheese shop carries it)!

The production of Bamboozle begins very similarly to Fresh Chèvre, up until the scooping of the curd. Instead of simple draining bags, Bamboozle-curd is scooped into molds to form the desired shape (now roughly 8# wheels). After some draining, these wheels are transferred to a brine solution tank to soak up salt and reach a desirable pH. They spend about 36 hours in the tank, then are placed on shelves in a humid area to begin their aging process. Over the course of 6 to 8 weeks their rinds are washed meticulously with a brine solution featuring local brewery Cinderlands’ Tracks Again, a Pilsner-style beer. This washing process fosters the growth of Brevibacterium Linens. B Linens are what give your favorite washed rind cheeses that reddish orange hue and cabbage/eggy/sulfuric smell. Try melting Bamboozle on your favorite breakfast sandwich, you won’t be disappointed!

Wild Rosemary

Milk: Pasteurized goat & cow
Rennet: Vegetarian
Age: 4-6 months
Ingredients: Pasteurized goat & cows milk, salt, vegetarian rennet, culture, dried rosemary, extra virgin olive oil
Texture/profile: Semi firm but silky and creamy. Aromatic, light, lemony.
Pairing idea: Potter’s Cranberry Hazelnut Crisps

The newest member of the Goat Rodeo corral, Wild Rosemary was introduced in 2019. This Spanish inspired cheese with its basket-esque rind is a clear nod to classics like Manchego. Unlike the typically sheep’s milk Manchego, Wild Rosemary is a mix of the other two milks. It is interesting to see the differences that develop when another animal’s milk is used for such a well known cheese. This cheese is by no means a Manchego, but they could be considered good cousins. 

Goat’s milk production is very much seasonal, peaking in the early spring during kidding season, which is when the does are giving birth, typically during the spring flush so they will have the highest nutritional value in their graze they can pass along to the kids. Due to lactation cycles, cow’s are more suited to produce milk year round. The introduction of mixed milk cheeses to their line up has afforded Goat Rodeo the opportunity to stretch their goat’s milk into seasons with lower production while also creating delicious cheese. Luckily there are farms nearby with high quality grass fed cow’s milk!

For the production of Wild Rosemary, milk is gravity flowed into the vat, low temp pasteurized, and cultures and rennet are introduced. From there, the curd (solids) is cut and stirred to separate it from the whey (liquids). The whey is drained and remaining curds are hand scooped into molds to begin their formation into proper wheels. These proto-Wild Rosemary wheels are put directly into a brine solution to sop up all of that delicious salt. After a sufficient soak the wheels are hand rubbed with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and dried rosemary. They are then vacuum sealed and set to age for months. The vacuum seal process allows for the aromatics of the rosemary to really get deep into the core of the cheese, resulting in a refreshing, citrusy finish on the palate. Try incorporating Wild Rosemary into your next quiche to add some lemony brightness.

Hootenanny

Milk: Pasteurized goat
Rennet: Vegetarian
Age: 6 months
Ingredients: Pasteurized goat’s milk, salt, vegetarian rennet, culture
Texture/profile: Semi firm but creamy. Notes of hickory nuts and wildflowers
Pairing idea: Eclat Destination Bars

A hootenanny is an informal gathering with folk music and dancing. If you’ve ever been on a goat farm, the bleating of goats will hearken back to fiddles, drinking, ribaldry. Many such events occur during the spring flush, when the pastures are at their most prominent. The frost of the earth, no different than the social frost that divides us in the winter, has given way to the warmth of togetherness and merriment. I can think of no better name for a goat gouda than Hootenanny. Goat’s milk can be divisive. Many people will not even think about trying goat cheese under misguided presumptions about what you’re giving them. But gouda is crowd pleasing. Its nutty, butterscotch notes will turn the biggest skeptic into a believer.

Hootenanny is made with only spring and summer’s milk to highlight when the milk is at its highest quality. Goats have naturally aligned when it is best for them to be giving birth (kidding season) with when the earth is providing them with lush spring pastures to sustain themselves and in turn produce milk packed with nutrients for their kids. It only makes sense that this milk would be ideal for cheesemaking. You get out what you put in.

Hootenanny, like the other aged cheeses, begins its life cycle no different than Fresh Chèvre. Milk is gravity flowed into vats, pasteurized, culture and rennet are introduced, and the curd is cut. One main difference in gouda production is the washing of the curd. Hot water is pumped into the vat to help expel additional whey and lactose, resulting in a sweeter, less acidic cheese. From there, curd is scooped into hoops, pressed to further expel whey, and is given a 36 hour brine bath. It is then transported to the gouda aging room where it is cared for meticulously for months. During this time it also receives three coats of its signature golden orange cream wax rind. Try a piece with a malty brown ale for a delicious fall treat.