For regular readers of this blog, you’ll know how obsessed with cheese I am. I’m always looking to try out new kinds and find new places to make my cheesey purchases! I was particularly excited to hear from Aldi recently – the discount supermarket has extended its range of products with a selection of high quality, British cheeses carefully crafted by artisan producers. And I was even more excited to learn that they would send me a hamper of them to test out for myself. And as you will have seen from the photo at the top of this post, there was A LOT! It was a cheese feast!

Selected by Aldi’s expert cheese buyer, the new range is sourced from creameries across the country, who employ traditional cheese making methods that go back centuries and have been refined over decades. From cloth bound mature Cheddar cold-smoked over locally sourced oak chips in Devon and a crumbly Lancashire made using a closely guarded secret culture developed at a family-run farm, to a cave-aged British goats cheese sourced from Dorset.

Specially Selected Range

Trevarrian Cornish Brie – £0.99, 200g

Trevarrian Cornish Camembert – £0.99, 200g

Trevarrian Cornish Goat’s Cheese – £0.99, 70g

I was also sent a Specially Selected Brie with Truffle which will be going on sale later in the year. These were all absolutely delicious (I’m a sucker for a soft cheese) and I melted the two bries in the oven – heaven!

Artisan Regional Quickes Mature – £2.99, 250g

Artisan Regional Quickes Mature Smoked – £2.99, 200g

Artisan Regional Appleby’s Double Gloucester– £2.99, 200g

I was really surprised by these – looking at them, they really do have that artisan feel that you would normally expect from a cheese monger rather than in the fridge in a supermarket. The smoked cheese was particularly good!

The Cheese Emporium Range

Dewlay Crumbly Lancashire – £1.25, 250g

Belton Crumbly Cheshire – £1.25, 250g

Belton Crumbly Wensleydale – £1.25, 250g

Dewlay Double Gloucester – £1.25, 250g

These ones didn’t look quite as impressive as the others (they looked more like you would expect to find in a supermarket) but they certainly packed a punch in terms of flavour. They’d be great on a cheeseboard but they’re also good for cooking with – I used some of these for some gorgeous cheese toasties.

The new range has now launched in stores across the UK with prices starting from as little as 99p, and I think that’s the thing that really impressed me. These cheeses are incredibly reasonably priced – I’m quite certain that you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference with some of them in a blind taste test along side a more expensive cheese. I’ll admit I hadn’t actually been into an Aldi supermarket before, but after trying these cheeses I’ll certainly be paying them a visit.

*Crackers and ceramic mouse were not included

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I was invited to review the new Aldi cheese range by Weber Shandwick and Aldi, but did not receive any payment. All views are my own.