Next, Mark hooks up four long "arms" to a mixer that helps break up the clumpy curds and Kris and I get in there with our (yes, clean and sterilized) hands to help get the ones the machine misses.

Working elbow-deep in curds really gets you close to the cheese and it's easy to see why artisan food makers are so passionate about their products.

With shovels, we turn over the curds and move the ones from the edges of the tank to the center; again, to help the machine ensure fairly uniform curds and no clumping.

Then Mark salts the curds and we -- and the machine -- continue mixing. It's important that most of the moisture is off the curds before salting or the salt would run off with the excess. It's also extremely important that the salt is evenly distributed. If not, the cheese will appear mottled because the salt reacts with the cheese.

While Mark and Brandon start putting curds into molds to make 40-pound Cheddar blocks for a customer in Indiana, Kris and I fill some small plastic bags with curds for the retail shop. Some of those curds get flavored and I add the Penzey's spices to a big bag of curds and mix them up to create some shallot and black pepper curds.

Then I join in to help Brandon fill molds. Mark scoops up buckets of curds and weighs them to ensure uniform blocks. To make a 40 or 42-pound block, we need to pack in 47 pounds of curds. When they are pressed overnight, the loss of moisture and air will get them to their proper weight.

We put a bucketful of curds into the mold and punch them down, then add a second bucketful and punch them down more. Then the cheesecloth that lines the molds is folded over the top and a metal lid is put on.

Mark puts the molds into the press and sets the pressure. The next morning, the blocks will be ready.

The blocks are sent to wholesalers or carved up here and packaged for retail sale in places like Sendik's and the Outpost in Milwaukee, as well as farmers' markets in West Bend, West Allis and Bay View's South Shore Park. Sprecher also sells packets of curds at the end of its brewery tours. One of Beechwood's most talked-about products is Kris' chicken soup cheese.

In the meantime, I think about how rewarding it must be to be a cheesemaker -- but also how much hard work goes into making something most of us take for granted -- abd Kris and I spend some time bagging, weighing and pricing bags of curds for the retail shop.

All the while, other employees filter in and quietly start going about their business. Customers begin to come into the shop and Kris and Mark know them all. There's the couple from New Jersey who live in an old church out east and now also own an old church in Beechwood that they're renovating.

Some former ballplayers Mark coached when he led the Random Lake baseball team to multiple state titles stop in, too. One is back from college in Minneapolis and the other, tanned, is fresh out of boot camp.

There's work to be done at Beechwood and everyone is doing it, but what makes it so special - other than the delicious cheese - is the neighborly vibe that permeates the place.

Stop in, especially the first Saturday of the month for the popular Cheese Curd Day when you can buy curds basically right out of the tanks, and you'll see what I mean. When you get there, tell Kris I said howdy.