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Brooklyn Couple Is Using Old Brewery Tunnel to Age Cheese


Affinage, the art of aging cheese, is not something many delve into if they don’t make cheese themselves — but this couple from Brooklyn did just that. In 2001, Benton Brown and Susan Boyle bought and renovated an old brewery, and subsequently rented most of the space out as apartments and offices. However, there was one space they couldn’t use as such — a 70-foot lagering tunnel. Well, they thought, if we can’t ferment beer, why not ferment cheese?

“We’ve always loved cheese and here we had these tunnels,” Mr. Brown, 41 years old. “We thought, what are we going to do with them?”

At first, he considered becoming a cheesemaker, and studied the art in Vermont and France. That was, until he decided that it would make more business sense to enter later in the cheesemaking process. “We don’t have the farm or the animals,” Mr. Brown deadpanned.

Read more on the Wall Street Journal

Photo by Andrew Hinderaker for The Wall Street Journal

Rebecca Haley-Park

Rebecca Haley-Park is culture's former editor and resident stinky cheese cheerleader. A native New Englander, she holds a BFA in creative writing from University of Maine at Farmington.

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