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Bill Addison
8/1/2009
“Welcome to my dairy/laboratory,” says Dane Huebner, a strapping Wisconsinite recruited two years ago to be the cheesemaker at Flat Creek Lodge in East Georgia. Standing in Huebner’s workspace, one immediately grasps the lack of irony in his laboratory reference. Shiny milk vats, intricate angles of piping, and a looming wall of walk-in coolers make the spotless concrete and metal room feel like a stronghold of science.
Peeking inside those coolers reveals the more playful side of his operation. Connoisseurs praise Huebner’s natural-rind cheddars and a crumbly, tangy original called Flat Creek Farmhouse, though Huebner can also get zany with flavorings. Cilantro leaves create bursts of neon green in leyden (a hard cheese similar to Gouda), and Huebner is tinkering with another variation seasoned with ginger and scallions. Horseradish or Thai red chiles may be infused into cheddars, though the true glamour girl is the award-winning Aztec—cheddar striated with guajillo chile powder and cocoa powder. The extra ingredients don’t retain their individual flavors, but they weave a handsome, uniquely lacy pattern through the cheese.
Perhaps it’s the lack of distraction that makes Huebner’s imagination so prolific. Located on the outskirts of Swainsboro, Flat Creek opened to the public eight years ago as a hotel and hunting lodge, but Huebner’s cheese¬making skills have brought the business its biggest rush of fame. After beloved and well-established Sweet Grass Dairy in Thomasville, Flat Creek is only the second artisan producer in Georgia to sell its cheeses regionally in groceries and specialty stores (as well as at Peachtree Road Farmers Market). And Huebner has plenty more ideas for the 4,200 pounds of milk per week produced by the lodge’s herd of Jersey cows: He’s building more walk-in coolers so he has room to age smaller wheels of creamy soft-
ripened cheeses, and he’s perfecting a new blue cheese made from half cow’s milk and half ewe’s milk that will be ready by fall.
Does it get lonely with only the animals and a few other staffers for company? Huebner replies with a shrug. “Hey, I have my own dairy,” he says. “And Savannah isn’t far.”
Flat Creek Lodge cheeses are available at Star Provisions and other specialty stores, and at local Whole Foods. flatcreeklodge.com
Photograph by Jamey Guy
This article originally appeared in the August 2009 issue of Atlanta magazine
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