Philly's cheese freaks throw cheese balls, make cheese in their basements and are growing a local industry

'I thought we had to make our own cheese," Tara Zampella said apologetically, "so I made a chèvre." The Allentown resident and admitted cheeseoholic set the log of creamy goat cheese on a table already laden with dozens of blocks, wheels, and wedges.

It was a delicious misunderstanding - and one that could happen only at the Cheese Ball, a biannual, bring-your-own-cheese gathering of local dairy luminaries.

That this event could draw several hundred fans on a rainy Sunday night underscored the fact that this region is in the midst of a cheese renaissance. Other signs of that ascendancy: the emergence of urban cheesemaking in this region, the launch of a new community-supported cheese cooperative, and the formation of a trade group, the Pennsylvania Cheese Guild, to support the industry and promote lacto-tourism along what members are calling the Pennsylvania Cheese Trail.

Tenaya Darlington, a writer better known as Madame Fromage, organized the Cheese Ball to benefit the upstart guild.

Darlington moved to Philadelphia 11 years ago, and, as a Wisconsin transplant, immediately went looking for the local cheese scene.

There really wasn't one.

So she helped create it. She's part of a group of aficionados (hashtag: #rennetroughriders), who get together to talk cheese and entertain visiting cheese thought-leaders. It includes people like Mike Geno, a painter in Kensington known for lovingly detailed cheese portraits, and Yoav Perry, a cheesemaker and consultant who recently moved from Brooklyn to Fishtown.

"With the renaissance of craft beers and coffee, cheese is that next artisan product people are getting excited about," Darlington said. "I think that's a national trend. But Philadelphia also has an unusual number of passionate cheese restaurateurs and cheesemongers."

As a result, the number of cheesemakers is also on the rise, she said.

Some are dairy farmers who found they couldn't survive by selling milk alone. Others left desk jobs in favor of this time- and labor-intensive work rooted in centuries-old tradition.

Still others are former chefs, like Sam Kennedy, a Culinary Institute of America graduate who works at the Farm at Doe Run in Unionville.

"As a chef, I was one in 100,000. As a cheesemaker, I bring that down to one in a thousand," he said. "I feel like I can have a voice in the culinary arts world."

Wade Smith, another former chef, makes cheese at Caputo Brothers Creamery in Spring Grove. He arrived at the Cheese Ball festooned with bling-y necklaces and, for a pendant, a balloon of scamorza. ("It's a young provolone," he said. "It's a member of the pasta filata family, which means 'stretched curd.' ")

Smith thinks the new cheese guild - one of 15 such organizations in the country - could help advance the industry locally and expand its reach in other markets.

"Pennsylvania is one of the top five dairy-producing states, and we make a lot of cheese," he said. "But we don't represent it maybe as well as we could."

Local cheesemakers have tried to organize in the past. A guild was launched years ago but never got traction. And there are smaller, local groups, like the Chester County Cheese Artisans.

But Sue Miller of Birchrun Hills Farm in Chester Springs said she thinks there's now a critical mass of new cheesemakers, and more consumer interest than ever.

Stefanie Angstadt, who started Valley Milkhouse in Oley, Berks County, in 2014 after leaving a job in corporate sales, said that interest sustained her through the rocky process of starting a creamery.

At 31, she said she's among the youngest cheesemakers in the area in part because it's a tough business to enter.

"It's a capital-intensive process. You do need specialized equipment. And cheesemaking is incredibly difficult: There's a high failure rate, and things go wrong constantly," Angstadt said. "But what surprised me was, in spite of all that, you can go to a farmers' market and talk to people about how great the milk is, which it is, and tell your story and it was supported right away."

Now, she and Miller, for one, have teamed on a new community-supported agriculture program called Collective Creamery. They're offering biweekly cheese subscriptions of Birchrun Hill's rustic, aged cheeses and Valley Milkhouse's delicate, fresh and bloomy-rind cheeses for pickup at sites around Philadelphia and the suburbs.

The goal, said Angstadt, is to help grow the market and make room for even more emerging cheesemakers.

Angstadt started out as a hobbyist - an increasingly common path, according to Yoav Perry, the consultant, who also imports cheesemaking equipment and sells sheep's milk under the brand Perrystead.

Perry has a cheese cave in his basement filled with his own experiments.

"It's a lot like charcuterie and brewing, only cheese is a little more involved," he said. "It's kind of a magical process."

There are even part-time cheesemakers, like Emiliano Tatar of Merion Station's Merion Park Cheese Co. He believes himself to be greater Philadelphia's only commercial urban cheesemaker.

A pediatrician, Tatar was intrigued by a process that was part science experiment, part culinary challenge. He started making cheese three years ago, and last year decided to start selling a hard, cow's milk cheese he calls Mercer Road. He makes it one day a week, producing up to a dozen wheels per month.

Back at the Cheese Ball, Tatar set cubes of Mercer Road on a table to be sampled by guests dressed as mice or cows, or wearing wedge-shaped foam cheese hats. One woman rustled by wrapped in red cellophane with a Babybel logo on her chest.

For those in the know, it was a cheesy Who's Who.

Kennedy, of the Farm at Doe Run, looked around with a degree of awe: "I have my idol here, and my mentor, and all of my colleagues."

Cheesemakers interrogated one another about aging, conditions, and culturing, and the cheeseboard deteriorated into what Darlington termed "a beautiful disaster."

Rebecca Canna of West Philadelphia arrived to check out the offerings. She said Darlington had inspired her to host her own annual cheese ball, turning her dining table into one giant, potluck cheeseboard for the evening.

"I have some people who aren't so into cheese, and they'll bring string cheese," Canna said. "It's about bringing what you love, and sharing it with other people."

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