When Beehive Cheese strides into the party, heads turn. Holstering their phones, guests turn to their friends. “You gotta try that cheese!”

This is not the cheese you grew up on—it’s in a league of its own, a flavor that transports you somewhere new where a spirited conversation can begin. This is a humble cheddar elevated to artisanal greatness through the art of the rubbed rind. Our cheese brings people together and sharing it freely has been linked to an increase in the quality and quantity of friendships—that’s pretty much a fact.

So how did the creation of award winning, first of its kind rubbed rind cheese derive from a software guy and a real estate salesman? Well, they say in order to break the rules you need to know them first. 

2005 - 2024

Determined to contribute to the local Utah foodie community, best friends and brothers-in-law Pat and Tim sought help from the Western Dairy Center, a leading cheese research institution of the western U.S. Seeing our determination, the cheese researchers quickly adopted us as their artisanal interns. By the time Pat and Tim filled the vat for the first time, they only had 8 days of cheesemaking experience between them.

We realized pretty quickly that you can’t make great cheese without the best milk. That led us to partner with Gossner Foods, a third-generation family creamery, to source high quality local Jersey cow's milk. This partnership forged nearly 20 years ago was the beginning of a long and fruitful journey that deepend in 2023 when we began planning for the next chapter in our business story. More on that later.  

After sourcing our milk, it was time to break some of those long standing cheesemaking traditions. Tim had some coffee roasted by his brother in Colorado lying around. In a moment of flavor creativity, he combined the rich, roasty coffee with bright lavender for an external rub he put on a wheel of our base cheddar, Promontory, and thus Barely Buzzed was born! 

In 2007, Pat and Tim took their category-blazing Barely Buzzed to the ACS competition and turned heads and expanded minds. In its first year of competition, Barely Buzzed pulled ahead in its category and won Best Flavored Cheddar in America. Not wanting to disappoint, Barely Buzzed took first place another six times in the years to come.

We believe if you make high quality cheese, the seasonings can play an important supporting role in enhancing the tasting experience. For years, many folks in the artisan cheese world did not approve of “stuff in cheese”. It seems that the new generation of cheese enthusiasts have changed their minds about the “rules” and are judging cheese based solely on whether or not it knocks their socks off. This shift in thinking can be seen in the evolution of the Flavored Cheese category at the annual American Cheese Society competition. The number of categories at the ACS competition have expanded by nearly 200% since 2014.     

In 2014, ACS added an entire sub-category of Rubbed-Rind Cheeses to accommodate all the new rubbed-rind cheeses inspired by Barely Buzzed and our other varieties of rubbed-rind cheeses.

This commitment and a willingness to try new things catapulted us to the national spotlight. Beehive continues to be among the nation’s leading creameries producing award-winning cheeses like our honey and salt rubbed Seahive, or New Mexico Hatch Chile seasoned Red Butte Hatch Chile.

In 2022, we became one of seven American cheesemakers to become B Corp Certified. This codified our commitment to using our business as a force for good. This means we treat our employees, community, and environment with dignity and respect. The work doesn’t stop there. We’ve also committed to improving in these areas, as well. We believe there’s always room for improvement.  

2024 and beyond – New beginnings and big changes

For 19 years we operated our small creamery at the mouth of the Weber Canyon in the Ogden area. In 2019 we began to feel the impact of this steady growth and realized we were reaching the limit of what our facility could realistically handle. After surviving the pandemic, we began to research our options to expand while staying true to our core values. 

Being family owned and operated is very important to us. Of equal importance is our commitment to our community, environment, and legacy. Expanding on our own for future growth became out of reach after 2021 as soaring costs and interest rates created risk that didn’t align with our values. So we did what we always do–created our own pioneering solution.       

Gossner Foods has been our raw milk supplier and mentor since we opened our doors. Not only do they process fluid milk, they are also expert cheesemakers producing much of the nation’s swiss cheese. This long and trusted relationship laid the foundation for the next chapter in our relationship.

In the summer of 2024, we moved production to their Heyburn, ID creamery (a.k.a. Magic Valley) where the Gossner team uses our equipment and recipe to produce wheels of Promontory. This allows us to harness their scale and efficiencies, while maintaining our ownership and creative spirit. 

Once the wheels have been produced, they are sent to our Uintah, UT location where they will become rubbed-rind masterpieces and aged to perfection.