Dairy
Single Gloucester
Single Gloucester is a traditional cow’s-milk cheese of Gloucestershire, lighter and often softer or more open-textured than Double Gloucester, made from partly skimmed or less rich milk in smaller wheels. The flavour is mild, lactic, and gently buttery; aging is shorter than for many hard British truckles, so the paste stays relatively pale and sliceable without heavy crystal development. It is a protected regional cheese with strict links to Gloucestershire milk and traditional methods, and is less common outside specialty counters than Double Gloucester. It is eaten as a table cheese and used in local cookery.
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Characteristics
Preparations
Traits
History
Gloucester farmhouses made lighter pressed cheeses from leaner milk that later became known as Single Gloucester.
Single and Double Gloucester were distinguished in county trade by milk richness and wheel size.
Production of true Single Gloucester declined as Double and industrial Cheddars dominated markets.
Single Gloucester received PDO protection, limiting production to Gloucestershire with defined methods.
Small farmhouse makers kept PDO Single Gloucester available as a rare traditional British cheese.