This beautiful Goat Bethmale comes from the well-known Jean Faup Fromagerie. Earthy and rustic, Jean Faup Goat Bethmale is made with pasteurised local cow and goat's milk and strictly based on the old rural, high-altitude traditions of this remote area. A natural rind forms as the cheese is aged for two-to-three months on wood planks, being turned and brushed throughout the process. Jean Faup Goat Bethmale has a somewhat spicy tang with the gentle citric overtones that are expected in fine goat cheese.
A little history about Fromagerie Jean Faup
In 1904, Jean Faup started producing Camembert in the village of Oust in the Pyrénées region of Southwestern France to export to the French colonies of northern Africa. For three generations the Faup family developed this business until the market suddenly died when the colonies gained their independence. In 1960 the dairy had to reinvent itself.
Jean Faup, the third, decided to resurrect the local cheese made traditionally by shepherds in their summertime mazucs – stone cheesemaking huts in the patois of the Upper Ariège – when they took their heards to graze at higher elevations. Jean modernized the recipe by pasteurizing the milk, painting the rind and aging it only three weeks: the post-war Pyrénées cheese was born!
In 1977, Didier Lemasson, Jean’s nephew, took over the dairy and returned to a more tradional cheese, produced with raw milk and a natural, washed rind. His vision was to revitalize the local cheese known as Bethmale.
Didier continued to innovate: in 1984, he developed a pressed-curd tomme made of mixed cow and goat milk. In 1988, he launched a pure goat milk pressed tome which reinstated goat milk production in the area.
Today, managed by Didier and his daughter Virginie, Fromagerie Jean Faup draws its strength from five generations of experience and craft, with a mission to:
Bring ancient traditions back to life and preserve them
