Beemster

Beemster cheese is a hard, Dutch cow's milk cheese. Production of Beemster is similar to other hard cheeses such as Gouda. The specific taste of Beemster stems from the ingredients , that part of the production process (the stirring of the curd) is done by hand, and that the cheeses are ripened in changing conditions. After the completion of the Beemster-polder in 1612, farming was made possible. The new land, four meters below sea-level, was fertile and suitable for agriculture and dairy farming. Until 1901, most of the dairy farmers delivered their milk and home-made cheese to local merchants. The dependency on these merchants did not always please them. In 1901, a number of dairy farmers in several villages all decided to start cooperatives. The different cooperatives built small cheese factories. One of these was the cooperative Wilhelmina, opened in 1907. In 1930, they joined with another factory in the polder, De Unie, forming the joint cooperative cheesemaking facility called De Tijd ("The Time").

Source: Wikipedia