Minnesota Cheese Festival Hits State Fairgrounds

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – If you're a cheese enthusiast, you'll want to head to the Minnesota State Fairgrounds this weekend.

It'll be the host for the Minnesota Cheese Festival, which will offer a ton of tasty varieties from several local vendors. Edward Moody spent the morning at Midwest Supplies in St. Louis Park talking all things cheese with the experts there.

Cheese makers from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa will be at the festival. In addition, numerous artisan food producers will be onsite to highlight the greatest products you can pair with cheese. Those include Ames Farm, Bare Honey, Brooklyn Slate, David Towley Woodworking, Mississippi Market Natural Foods Co-op, Olive on Tap, Pam's Pepper Jam, Potter's Crackers, Tantalizing Taste and Underground Meats.

The festival has added more demonstration areas and increased the capacity for each demonstration space, offering guests even more cheese-filled activities to enjoy. Each demonstration or seminar is first come, first served.

Midwest Supplies does a lot more than cheese. They do wine-making and brewing, have a gardening section and coffee roasting. They do everything that's fun for the home cheese maker. They'll be hosting hourly cheese-making demonstrations on Sunday.

Basic supplies for making cheese at home include milk, a curd knife, a skimmer and cultures that can be used to making different types and flavors of cheese. The experts at Midwest Supplies said all you need to make your first batch of cheese and other products is basic kitchen equipment. The softer a cheese is, the faster it is to make. Amuseé Wine will host wine and cheese pairing seminars twice per Session for those 21 and over. A Perfect Pint will also be pairing beer with cheese in seminars for those 21 and over. Other events include "The Cheese Guy" hosting guided cheese taking seminars and Chef Jesse Fuls conducting seminars on cooking with cheese.

The Minnesota Cheese Festival is Sunday at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. Tickets cost $35 in advance and $40 at the door.