From running the pasteurizer to pumping fresh milk to adding the all-important starter culture to putting the cheese in forms and pressing it down, Master Cheesemaker Tony Hook is hands-on when crafting 70 flavors of aged cheddars, blues, and mixed milk cheeses that bear the name of Hook’s Cheese.

A cheesemaker for more than 55 years with a Master’s Degree in both Blue Cheese and Cheddar Cheese, Tony Hook and his wife, Julie, founded Hook’s Cheese in the tiny town of Mineral Point, Wis. (pop. 2,569) in 1976. To date, the cheese processor is annually churning out 450,000 pounds of high-quality, artisanal small-batch cheese in eight categories: Blue Cheese, Cheddar, Colby, Cow, Goat, Gouda, Sheep, and Swiss.

“I don’t have to bend over the cheddar slabs as much or stir the cheese in the vat like I used to 30 years ago, I leave that to the younger guys,” he says, laughing.

To help ease the backbreaking work often associated with cheesemaking, the dairy plant added a 2,000-pound finishing table in March to go alongside the plant’s two stainless steel vats that hold 10,000 and 17,000 pounds of fresh cow, goat or sheep milk sourced from nearby local farms that are crucial to making fresh, artisanal cheese.

When Julie and I were running Buck Grove Cooperative from 1976 to 1987 (before purchasing this building), all the cheese we made involved stooping over one 20,000-pound vat that required a lot of leaning,” Tony Hook explains. “When we first began making cheese here nearly 40 years ago, we had a large, 40,000-pound vat, a finishing table, and an auger with a blade that acts like a conveyor and moves materials upwards as the blade rotates.

“In 2001, we went back to the smaller vats because we were creating more specialized cheeses,” he continues. “… Converting the cheese from 40-pound blocks to 5-pounders, 1-pounders, and the traditional 8-ounce blocks are handled by the McCluskey Brothers Organic Farm, located about 35 miles away in Hillpoint. So, they’ll pick up six pallets of cheese on a given Tuesday and bring in back to us the next week. It’s a pretty seamless operation.”

In addition to the wide variety of cheese that it sells, Hook’s Cheese has made a name for itself in more than 50 awards it has garnered through the years from the American Cheese Society, U.S. Championship, and World Championship. Most notably, in 1982, this small-but-mighty cheese processor earned "Best of Class" in the Coby and Monterey Jack category and moved forward to win the overall "World Champion Cheese.”

“Julie is the only woman to have ever received this prestigious award for not only being ‘Best of Class’ for Colby, but being named the overall World Champion,” Tony Hook proudly says of his wife of 52 years who is no longer actively making cheese. A large billboard outside Hook’s cheesemaking plant and Factory Story at 320 Commerce St. acknowledges this rare honor for a United States cheesemaker.

Even more impressive, the 8,500-square-foot plant, built into the hills of scenic Mineral Point during the mining era, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Due to this fact, parts of the plant, which became a cheese factory in 1929, are on a steep incline. In fact, this writer had to go up a fairy large cement step to interview Tony at his desk to learn more about his cheesemaking operations. (Also read the Cheese Processor article in this issue).

After ceasing to be a contract manufacturer in 2001, Hook’s began marketing its cheese under its own label as word — and the deliciousness and uniqueness of its aged cheddars, blues, and other small-batch varieties — began to flourish. More distributors across the country, including four on the East Coast, five in the South, several in the Midwest, four in Madison, Wis., six in California, the Northeast and Northwest, and a large distributor in Chicago, began selling the brand — now available in 40 states and in many grocery stores in Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois.

A staple at hundreds of restaurants who showcase the Hook’s name on their menus, annual revenue for this small, nearly solely family-run cheesemaking company with just seven full-time employees is registering $5 million in sales. The 72-year-old Master Cheesemaker notes he has no signs of slowing down, health permitting, as he typically arrives at the plant at 6 a.m. and leaves by 2 p.m. when the Factory Story closes. On Saturday mornings, Tony and Julie are manning the booth at the Dane County Farmers Market from their stand in front of the U.S. Bank Building on Pickney Street in Madison, Wis.

“We’ve been participating in the Farmers Market since 1994, and it has really increased our visibility and marketability since that’s where many chefs, restaurants, and consumers discovered us and they just keep coming back,” Tony Hook explains.

He notes that even after making cheese for more than five decades, “I am passionately focused on innovation, creativity and championing and perfecting the art and science of aged cheese and experimenting with other flavors that I think our customers would enjoy.”

Hook’s Cheese is renowned for the “bite” of its slow-churned Aged White and Yellow Cheddars, which comprise 50% of dollar sales, and are aged 1 ,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 15 and 20 years. “One fun fact is that all of the cheddars that are even years on the label (2, 4, 6, etc.) are White Cheddars, and all of the cheddars that are odd years (1,3, 5, etc.) are Yellow Cheddars,” Tony Hook relays to Dairy Foods during a recent visit.

As cheese ages, the lactose in the milk breaks down into lactic acid, which gives the cheese a sharper, stronger taste. The longer the cheese is aged, the more lactose breaks down, he explains. Recipe-wise, though, Tony Hook notes that the recipe for his cheddar is pretty much the same one used since the 1970s, when he started working for head cheesemaker Bill Ienatch at Barneveld Cheese Co. “Yes, it’s been tweaked a few times but I’m committed to quality and making cheese the old-fashioned way. Artificial Intelligence and automation that’s happening in some newer cheese plants — that’s not our cup of tea.”

Going old-school for Hook’s Cheese has brought success.

“One of our claims to fame is that in December 2009, I believe that our 15-year Yellow Cheddar was the oldest commercially available Cheddar in the United States,” he relays. “In 2015 about 450 pounds of our first 20-year cheese, a Yellow Cheddar, was released. In 2023, we released a 20-year White Cheddar and in 2025, our customers can anticipate small batches of our Yellow and White Cheddar.” The price does not come cheap, with the average 8-ounce chunk costing about $100.

Made from cow’s milk that is free from rBST (growth hormones), the 5 Year Sharp Cheddar Cheese is sharp, acidic, and a perfect accompaniment to any cheese board, Tony Hook says. No 1 in sales, this varietal accounts for 20% of sales and retails for $15 for an 8-ounce block. Cheddars account for 50% of sales, blue cheese contributes 25% in sales, while mixed milk cheese comprises 8% of annual revenue, he adds.

Cheddar cheese aged the Hook’s way

When asked how Hook’s cheddar aging process differs from other cheesemakers, Tony Hook responds that the aging process he employs is “significantly different” from how cheesemakers in the United Kingdom typically make cheddar. Hook’s Cheese uses small on-site curing caves with carefully regulated temperatures of 38 degrees Fahrenheit that allows for a slow-curing process.

“Most of the British traditionally make bandage-wrapped cheeses that are air-cured,” he explains. “Over the course of a year, this cheese may lose about 20% of its moisture. We make our cheeses in 40-pound blocks. They’re aged in plastic and never exposed to air, so they don’t lose much moisture during that period of time — which I think enhances the ‘bite’ and gives it a different flavor from bandage-wrapped cheddar.

“As soon as we make a vat, within two hours, we take it out of the press and seal it in a long hold bag, put it in a cardboard box, put it on the pallet, and then it goes to our 2,000-square foot cold storage area where we start aging it,” he adds.

As the aging program for cheddars, Swiss (aged 1-5 years), and blues continues to expand, approximately 500,000 pounds of cheese can be aged and stored on-site. “We age cheese up to as much as 20 years, so we had to rent another facility near Green Bay that holds over a million pounds of cheese for us,” Tony Hook states.

Since the 1990s, Hook’s also has made a name for itself by creating six varieties of versatile, calcium-rich blue cheeses that can be crumbled on a salad, melted on sweet corn or to add even more meat on a burger, and, of course, used on a charcuterie board. Hook’s blue cheeses are: Original Blue, Blue Paradise, and Gorgonzola, which all made from cow’s milk; Little Boy Blue, which is made from sheep milk; Barneveld Blue, which is hand-crafted from goat milk; and then Ewe Calf to be KIDding!, the dairy’s first foray in a mixed milk blue cheese fashioned from cow, goat and sheep milk.

“In the last 25 years, it’s just been a lot of fun to experiment with all these different Blue Cheeses,” Tony Hook reiterates. “When we make Blue Paradise, we make about 175 wheels at a time. All of our Blue Cheeses are made in ‘wheels,’ while all of our other cheeses, like the Cheddars, the Colby, are made in 40-pound ‘blocks.’”

Award-wise, 2024 is shaping up to be a banner year for Hook’s Cheese. Team Hook’s Little Boy Blue, a rich sheep milk blue aged between 10 and 12 months and finishes with notes of grapes and honey, captured Best of Class at the 2024 World Championship in Milwaukee, Wis. Taking fourth-place honors were Barneveld Blue, a firm goat milk blue cheese; Gorgonzola, a sweet, milky cow's milk blue cheese with notes of citrus; Triple Play, a triple milk (cow, goat, and sheep) cheese with three starters (Gouda, Baby Swiss, and Havarti); and Ewe'd Be Amazed, a sweet, buttery sheep milk cheese with great melting potential.

Spice is nice

Hook’s has been manufacturing a mild Black Truffle Cheddar for 10 years, using truffle powder, black truffle powder and truffle oil, while also producing a Sheep Milk Truffle with an earthy, mushroomy, nutty flavor. In July, a new innovation, a sheep milk Monterey Jack style cheese — Spicy Sheep Milk Truffle Cheese — launched that uses real summer truffles.

The inspiration for using fresh truffles came unexpectedly in 2021 when the plant received an email and a call from a lady in Italy wanting to sell the dairy some summer truffles. “This young woman said, ’I’ll send you a sample’ and she shipped a 500-ml bottle of fresh truffles more than 4,500 miles,” Tony Hook recalls. “We mixed it with some cheddar and tried it. Then we let it age a couple of months and thought, ’Yeah, she told us how much to add and we thought there’s no way there’s going to be much truffle flavor.’ We couldn’t have been more wrong — this Italian-inspired cheese tastes amazing on a pizza or on a grilled cheese sandwich.”

It’s these types of discoveries and the chance to make cheese that is new and unique that drives Tony Hook forward.

“All of our equipment is old-style with open vats and completely hands-on work, whereas many of the newer plants have everything automated, enclosed, and controlled by a computer. I couldn’t stand pushing buttons to make my cheese,” he concludes. “Because when you can feel the texture of the curd, when you can touch it and smell it, there’s a huge difference. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”