There is exactly one place in the world that still makes real Wisconsin brick cheese. It sits on a quiet stretch of West Henni Street, in a small village called Theresa, in Dodge County, Wisconsin. The building has been a cheese plant since 1922. The bricks they use to press the curds are older than that.
John O. Widmer left Switzerland at the age of 18, emigrated to Wisconsin, and apprenticed at a cheese factory in nearby Kekoskee. There he learned to make brick cheese, a Wisconsin original invented in the 1870s by another Swiss immigrant, John Jossi, at a plant in Lebanon, just up the road. When Widmer bought the former Riverside Cheese Factory in Theresa in 1922, he decided that aged brick would become the family's signature cheese. Four generations later, it still is.
The bricks.
Brick cheese is named for the bricks used to make it. After the curds are scooped into rectangular forms, century-old actual bricks are stacked on top to press the whey out and shape the cheese. The State of Wisconsin has grandfathered Widmer's specific bricks and brine tank into food-safety code; they are old enough that modern equipment standards do not apply. The bricks are part of the cheese's history and, increasingly, part of its mythology.
Joe Widmer is the current owner and a Wisconsin Master Cheesemaker, a certification held by fewer than 100 cheesemakers in a state with more than 1,200 licensed cheesemakers. He grew up in the apartments above the plant. His son Joey is the fourth generation in the operation. The family lives, literally, in the cheese.
What else they make.
Brick is the headline, but Widmer's makes a wider range. They are also known for traditional stirred-curd Wisconsin Colby, an aged Cheddar with serious complexity (the curds are washed before salting, lowering lactose and reducing the bitterness in the finished cheese), and Butterkäse. Cheese curds are sold at the retail counter, both fresh cheddar curds and the unusual brick cheese curds, which are cubed from young brick rather than scooped from the cheddar vat. Cheese spreads, smoked meats, and a small selection of outside makers (including Chalet Cheese Co-op Limburger) round out the retail floor.
While other plants are becoming more modern and using more automation, we are trying to preserve the tradition of small, artisan-batch cheesemaking using a traditional recipe.
The scale.
Widmer's processes about 20,000 pounds of milk per day, sourced from three farms within a 15-mile radius of the plant. For comparison, Ellsworth Cooperative moves more than 100 times that volume daily. Widmer's is intentionally small. The retail store is a corner of the make room. Visitors can watch cheese being made through an observation window. The best time to come is 7:00 to 11:30 AM Monday through Friday, when the make is actually happening.
Why this recognition.
Widmer's qualifies for Heritage tier on the strength of their 104-year continuous family operation. They also meet the Master Cheesemaker pillar through Joe Widmer's personal certification, which arguably places them in Master tier as well. We have kept them at Heritage in this edition of the directory; that decision will be revisited in the 2027 review. They meet all six pillars of the Real Wisconsin Cheese Curd Standard.
