26 Of The Stinkiest Cheeses In The World

The world of cheese is full of wonders. The vast variety of flavors, textures, and aromas that can be created from something as simple and, let's face it, unappealing as curdled milk is extraordinary. While many cheeses are made to be mild and mellow, on the other end of the spectrum are the ones that can bowl you over with one whiff: We're talking about stinky cheeses. 

There are a few ways to bring an eye-watering, bowl-you-over aroma to cheese, from washing the rind to employing particular aging processes to throwing certain molds into the mix. At every step of the cheesemaking process, there are chemical reactions occurring that can contribute to upping the funk factor — when these reactions are encouraged, you end up with a pungent, smelly work of dairy art. Whether you're a stinky cheese lover seeking out your next thrill, or a hater looking for types to avoid, here's a list of some of the world's most odorous cheeses.

This bright and sunny little square of cheese, called Vieux Boulogne, may not look like it packs much of a punch. Looks can be deceiving, though, especially when it comes to cheese. In 2004, an official French stinky cheese competition ranked this creation the smelliest in the world, and it still holds that title in the Guinness Book of World Records.

What makes this cow's milk cheese so pungent is the process of washing the cheese rind with beer as it ages over a period of seven to nine weeks. It's described as smelling like a barnyard, complete with manure, as well as body odor, wet leaves, rotting onions, and mushrooms. Underneath that stench, though, is a soft, creamy, and mellow cheese, if you can hold your breath long enough to fight your way to it.

Arguably the best-known stinky cheese is Époisses. While the wines from the Bourgogne (also known as Burgundy) region are known for their elegance and subtlety, this cheese from the same part of France is anything but.

The rind of this cheese is washed with marc, which is French brandy distilled from pomace, or the grape bits that are leftover from the winemaking process — you may be more familiar with grappa, which is the Italian version of this spirit. That intensely boozy addition to this oozy cow's milk cheese, as it ages over a minimum of six weeks, is what gives it its unmistakable aroma of sweaty feet, ammonia, rotting leaves, and a hint of cured meat. 

Whatever you do, don't confuse Corsica's u pecurinu with its very different Italian cousin, pecorino. While both cheeses are made from sheep's milk, which explains the similarity of the name (the word for sheep is pecora in Italian), the two styles are not remotely interchangeable.

Like the mountainous, wild Mediterranean island where it's made, this cheese has a rustic and untamed quality, with an aroma that instantly fills a room with its animalistic odor. Think walking into a barn full of sheep that are dirty and sweaty from a long day of grazing. While the outside looks hard and rocky, the interior texture of this semi-firm cheese is actually quite tender.

A rarity in the world of washed-rind cheeses, A Casinca is made from goat's milk. It's another stinky beauty from Corsica, a place so known for its aggressively smelly cheeses that it became a running joke in the French comic Asterix — in the story "Asterix in Corsica," the fumes from a Corsican cheese explode and sink a ship. 

The potent aroma of this cheese has a gamey quality, with extra tangy pungency from the goat's milk. Damp hay and other funky barnyard odors round out its eye-watering bouquet.

If you've had American Muenster cheese, you may be surprised to discover that the French cow's milk cheese called Munster is one of the smelliest in the world. While the American version is extremely mild and mellow, French Munster, which hails from the Alsace-Lorraine region, is washed in brine and aged for a minimum of three weeks. The longer it's aged, the further its funkiness goes, as it develops aromas of dirty gym socks, horse stables, mushrooms, and forest undergrowth.

When you get past the rind into the cheese itself, it's actually somewhat reminiscent of American Muenster with its mild, buttery flavor. French Munster is a match made in heaven with wines from the Alsace region, especially aromatic whites like Riesling and Gewurtztraminer which have strong fruity, floral, and spicy bouquets that counteract the cheese's funk.

One of the great blue cheeses of the world, Roquefort is made in France from raw sheep's milk infused with a fungus called penicillium roqueforti which causes the development of mold from within, giving its characteristic blue color. Roquefort is aged in natural limestone caves near the town of the same name in southern France, which have just the right humidity and ventilation to foster the growth of the moldy blue veins. 

Early on, the cheese is washed in brine, but the wheels are then wrapped in foil to inhibit rind growth. After at least three months in the caves, Roquefort is ready to go, complete with its pungent scents: Seawater, barnyard, mushroom, and a sharp whiff of smokiness. This salty, moldy creation pairs beautifully with sweet wines.

Italy's most famous contribution to the stinky cheese pantheon is Taleggio. The Taleggio Valley lies among the Alps in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, where cows thrive grazing on mountain grasses. Their milk is then turned into squares of cheese that are regularly washed with brine over a minimum 35-day aging period to create the signature pinkish-orange rind.

Cheesemakers will also flip these cheeses on a regular basis, to ensure the rind develops evenly. Taleggio's funkiness can vary based on factors like the time of year the milk was collected or how long it's been aged, but typical aromas include meaty notes like bacon and beef, smelly feet, wet grass, and earth.

If you thought the Corsican cheeses sounded extreme, wait til you hop to the next Mediterranean island, Sardinia, a land with one of the world's most infamous cheeses, casu marzu. Its name translates to rotting cheese, and its legal status is either in limbo or outright banned depending on what country you're in.

The hesitancy around this cheese is because it's made by encouraging flies to lay eggs inside the sheep's milk wheel. The eggs then hatch maggots, which in turn ingest the cheese and leave behind an extra soft and creamy paste thanks to their digestive process, which acts as a form of fermentation. Those who've had it and lived to tell the tell say that its pungent, ammonia-tinged aroma is reminiscent of a strong blue cheese with an earthy, fermented funk.

Torta del Casar, a gooey raw sheep's milk cheese made in the Extremadura region of Spain on the Portuguese border, is part of a family of cheeses made with thistle rennet. Along with milk and bacteria cultures, rennet is a common ingredient in cheese making, as it contains the enzyme needed to solidify the milk proteins. 

Rennet comes in different forms, and is often derived from animals, but thistle plants like the cardoon used in this cheese offer a plant-based alternative. The thistle also contributes unique aromas and flavors to this cheese, adding a bitter vegetal, artichoke-like note to its strong, funky bouquet.

A big, brash, bold blue from the Asturias region of Spain, Cabrales is a cheese typically made with raw cow's milk, but can also contain sheep and goat. Like Roquefort, this blue is also aged in limestone caves that have the right conditions for penicillium roqueforti to grow and naturally affect the cheese. It takes a minimum of two months in these caves for the cheese to reach maturity. 

The intense aromas coming off a blue-studded wedge of Cabrales are wonderfully rustic and savory, with briny and spicy notes along with the baseline smell of fermented funk. A rich, sweet sherry, like a cream sherry or a Pedro Ximénez, is a great pairing.

We have Belgian monks to thank for one of the cheese world's smelliest offerings, Limburger. Today, this washed-rind cow's milk cheese is more closely associated with Germany, where the majority of it is now made, although it's still produced in Belgium and other countries, including the United States. 

This stinker is a true celebration of brevibacterium linens, which is the good bacteria encouraged to grow on washed-rind cheeses. This strain is also present on human skin and is responsible for some offensive body odors, most notably smelly feet — an aroma that's powerfully represented in every whiff of this cheese. 

Harzer cheese, also known as handkäse or hand cheese, comes from the region near the Harz Mountains in Northern Germany. This unique cheese is made from sour skimmed milk, shaped into small, unassuming, pale yellow pucks. You could almost mistake them for candy, although one sniff of the aroma would quash that impression right away. 

Pungently sour, sharp, and acidic, with a smell like old buttermilk, this cheese is made without the inclusion of rennet, relying purely on the acidity naturally formed by bacteria to make it curdle. The traditional way to eat it is topped with raw onions, oil, and vinegar, which is known as "Handkäse mit Musik" — the music referring to the involuntary sounds your body will likely make after eating the dish.

From the Czech region of Moravia comes this skimmed cow's milk cheese, known as Olomoucké Tvarůžky, or simply Olomouc. This soft-ripened cheese goes through a natural curdling process without the addition of rennet, similar to German Harzer. This results in a sharply sour, strongly acidic cheese with an aggressive aroma. 

Olomouc comes in different shapes, including discs, sticks, and rings that look like mini donuts. Sweaty socks, sour milk, and a whiff of ammonia waft off of this cheese with abandon, even when it's been diligently wrapped and contained — there's no containing the unmistakable smell.

From Denmark comes Esrom, a cow's milk cheese that was first created by monks hundreds of years ago, rediscovered in the 20th century, and is now a legally protected product. The interior is soft with small holes, mild and creamy, but the rind is where the aroma emanates from. 

It's washed in brine as the cheese ages for at least 10 weeks, imbuing it with a musty, earthy smell. The longer it ages, the more potent the aroma becomes, and it develops strong spicy and mushroomy notes. Pair it with a strongly flavored Trappist ale, which is likely how this cheese was enjoyed by the monks who invented it.

Denmark's favorite, most popular cheese is danbo, a semi-soft cow's milk cheese. In its younger iterations, it's a fairly mellow, accessible, mild-flavored cheese. As it ages, however, it becomes something else entirely, and takes on the mantle of Gamle Ole. This version is aged at least 35 weeks, and in that time develops a potent pungency. 

Even the less mature danbo cheeses have a bit of a smell from the rind washing process, but Gamle Ole takes that aroma and turns it up to the max. Opening the package of a Gamle Ole will turn whatever space you're in into a crowded, sweaty locker room.

Raw sheep's milk and thistle rennet are responsible for the stinkiness of Serpa, a cheese from Portugal, near the Spanish border in the southeast of the country. The rind's uniquely ridged texture comes from the cloth that it's wrapped in as it ages for a minimum of two months. 

As it matures, its aromas develop deeply earthy qualities, as well as vegetal and grassy notes from the thistle, and that characteristic but hard-to-define sheepy personality. A sour tang and sharp, punchy spicy smells can show up and intensify in longer aged wheels of Serpa. Portugal's famed fortified wines, like Port and Madeira, make fantastic pairings.

The name says it all — England's stinking bishop cheese is, as you would presume, one of the stinkiest cheeses you can get your hands on. As appropriate as it is, surprisingly the name Stinking Bishop actually comes from a type of pear. Made into perry (pear cider), it's then used to wash the rind of this cow's milk cheese, giving it a particularly boozy, fruity form of funk. 

The interior of Stinking Bishop is luxuriously gooey and silky. The flavor is quite mild, but the aroma is really something most people will have a hard time getting past. It's been called not just pungent, but putrid, like something rotting. Somehow, that's part of its charm.

One of the newer additions to the lineup of stinkiest cheeses comes from Scotland. Minger was introduced to the world in 2017, a washed-rind cow's milk cheese made with vegetarian rennet. Washed in brine with annatto, a seed extract that helps intensify the rind's orange color, minger ages for just shy of two weeks before it's wrapped, then given one more week to ripen and develop. 

The creator of minger compares its aroma to that of a rubber Wellington boot, while others describe it as sweaty socks, old cabbage, and even rotting meat. A strong Scottish ale makes an appropriate pairing for this odiferous cheese.

When it comes to dairy products, Ireland is best known for its Cheddar and butter (shout out Kerrygold for making both), but the island has a robust cheese-making culture (pun intended) that creates cheeses of all different styles. Ardrahan is a washed-rind, cow's milk cheese made with vegetarian rennet in a small town in County Cork. 

Washed in brine, wheels of Ardrahan age for four weeks, developing the classic orange rind and pungent aroma. One sniff of this cheese will transport you straight to a farm, with a combination of manure, hay, and damp earth creating an almost overwhelming rustic bouquet.

Hooligan comes from Connecticut, and it's one of the stinkiest American cheeses you'll find. Made from raw Jersey cow's milk, this cheese is washed in brine as it's aged for a period of at least 60 days, during which it develops strong earthy, grassy, and mushroom aromas that become more pronounced over time. 

The makers of hooligan, Cato Corner Farm, compare it to Munster from Alsace, and the similarities are there in both the smells and flavors. Thanks to that kinship, this cheese pairs beautifully with wines from Alsace.

Vermont's Jasper Hill Farms makes a number of exceptional cheeses, and while Winnimere may not be considered the most pungent, it definitely possesses an intense and unique aroma that's quite memorable. This comes about due to washing the rind in brine over the minimum 60-day aging process, and it's compounded by the strips of spruce bark that wrap the diameter of each wheel. 

These factors give this raw cow's milk cheese a deeply complex aromatic intensity that's woodsy and rustic. Winnimere is only made in winter, when the cows' milk expresses a particularly rich flavor due to their seasonal diet.

Ameribella is an American take on Taleggio made by Jacobs and Brichford, a farm and dairy located in Indiana. Like its inspiration, ameribella is a washed-rind cheese made from cow's milk, in this case from grass-fed Jersey cows. 

It's aged for at least 60 days, during which it's periodically washed in brine. Earthy and intensely yeasty, its pungent aromas are reminiscent of farmland and barnyards, with touches of meatiness and spice. 

King River Gold is a washed-rind cow's milk cheese made by Milawa Cheese Company, based in Victoria, Australia. The wheels are washed and brined weekly for about two months as the rind develops its orange color and signature aroma. 

The aromas of a bit of barnyard and earth, along with the classic washed-rind musty sock smell, are present here. There's a smokiness that wafts from the cheese and shows up in its flavor, as well.

Roumy (alternatively spelled romy, roumi, or rumi) is an Egyptian cheese made from a combination of milk from cows and water buffalo, or sometimes just cow's milk. Although it's considered to be similar to firm cheeses like Manchego and Parmesan, it boasts a much more pungent aroma than most of the cheeses of that style. 

It's aged for at least four months, but can keep going for years, getting sharper, saltier, and funkier with time. It also may be the oldest known cheese still made today — a substance thought to be remnants of roumy cheese was found in an excavated Ancient Egyptian tomb from around 3200 B.C.E.

Found throughout Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey, shanklish is a unique cheese made from yogurt. Just as with milk, the yogurt is separated into curds and whey, with the curds forming the base of the cheese. These are then shaped and dried and finally left to age. 

Young shanklish will be quite mild, but as it ages it ferments and develops mold on the surface, as well as a sharp, pungent aroma. Shanklish is often coated with herbs and spices to intensify its flavors and aromas even more.

Sosha, also known as shosha, churu, or churul, is a cheese that can be found in Tibet, Bhutan, and parts of India and China. Typically made from yak's milk, it can also include goat's milk. 

It's made from both the cream and skin of the milk, forms a natural rind, and is known for its incredibly pungent aroma that's been likened to Limburger. A Tibetan soup, also known as churu, uses this cheese as a major ingredient.