Yep, that’s what I think. Disappointing. Another reason I’m shopping more and more at Farmers Markets. But I would like to try that aged Tillamook. 
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Not sure that this has aged well, but it made millions laugh nearly 50 years ago…
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Is that the dead cheese sketch, Robin? Almost as famous as the dead parrot one.
Didn’t want to get into the whole rarebit thing (although I’ve done so previously), so I just went as originally planned, and piled a small heap of the old cheddar onto sourdough toast and put it under the broiler until bubbly, followed by a splash of Worcestershire. Came out just great. I should’ve stopped at one slice though, because it was pretty rich. Gluttony prevailed, and to my later regret, I ate three pieces.
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Two pieces is obviously the enlightened compromise between cheese nightmares and monastic collations. 
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I think we’d need to unpack what you have in mind by “conventionally raised” and “factory farms”. They have a bunch of claims on their website, but “grass-fed” isn’t one of them. No growth hormones is, and I see they also export into the EU (https://www.ninelife.eu/products/tillamook-cheese-medium-cheddar-8-oz), which rather famously (in the context of Brexit and trade-deal debates and so on) has a broad-spectrum ban on such practices, with real legal teeth.
Sustainable is a tricky one, as all cheese is going to have the cow-farts issue. Though of course if ll cheese were thirty quid a pop, that would quite the brutal methane-tax fix to that right there.
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Interesting! The hazards of generalisation indeed. That’s much slacker than anything I’ve come across either in the wild or in recipe form, and fairly clearly not toasted, either.
Still, it’s getting me hungry for cheese anyway!
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I’m trying a couple of cheeses i’ve never had today, the Black Diamond 5 Year cheddar mentioned in the original post (Ihave only has their 3 Year before) and Sartori Old World cheddar. I’ve been happy with the Sartori cheeses I’ve bought so far. Sartori MontAmore is the only cheddar of theirs I’ve had, good but I wouldn’t call it a favorite of mine.
Interesting. I’ve never had a proper Welsh rarebit (i.e. made by a Brit or a a restaurant in Britain) but when you see photos of it from American recipe sites or restaurants, they tend to be toast with a thinnish Mornay sauce poured over. The thick broiled cheese paste sounds a lot more interesting. Almost like an English Beignet de Vinzel (which I have made myself and which are utterly incredible). https://stephanedecotterd.com/2012/02/23/malakoff-et-beignets-de-vinzel/
I have to take vigorous issue with adding ketchup! If one is jazzing up cheap supermarket beans (yo, here!), then the critical fixes are needing a thicker sauce, and a more savoury (not to mention, diluting the excessive sweetness) one. So I commend to the house instead adding tomato puree and balsamic vinegar. Or buying a fancier grade of both beans and or ketchup than I do, perhaps. 
Some people would I think set a much higher jazziness threshold, though. Mixed beans, onions, garlic, peppers, that sort of malarkey. Maybe that’s getting us into art-jazz beans.
“Regional” breakfasts, indeed, hrmph! Those were variously Pointless and UK-constituent countries I mentioned, not mere regions! The former country council of London I’ll give you – hadn’t come across that one, I admit. Yes, they’re distinct-ish, and the distinctions are at least generated locally, as far as I know. But outside the crafted marketing arenas of B&Bs, airport caffs, etc, the contents of the Full Breakfast overlap quite considerably, the distinctions are intermittent, inessential, and even more historically recent than the cooked breakfast in its modern form is in the first place, which is, well, pretty recent. Not to mention essentially being an import from the US, whisper it softly. But certainly more distinct than the Three Shades of Great British Rarebit, which sound as if they were all made up in Mistress Glasse’s test kitchen at best, and her writing desk at worst, that was my original point.
BTW while haggis will certainly happen in some Full Scottish Breakfasts, I think it’s even more of a jock-come-lately. The ‘classical’ discriminants – were you to wake up somewhere and stagger down to breakfast with no memory of where in the Isles you were, and not able to communicate with anyone until you’d had your third cup of tea – would be fruit pudding, in adding to black, and a fried tattie scone. Not to be confused with the potato farl you’ll often find in a Full Irish.
Summary
(Spoiler, they’re the same thing.)
If I had fried white bread in my fry, I’d presume myself in England, and heavy brown sodabread would make me suspect I was in Ireland. I’ve heard it claimed that No True Irish Breakfast has beans in it, of which I’m skeptical. So while seeing beans wouldn’t make me think I wasn’t in Ireland, hearing someone complain about them might be information gain towards thinking I was.
And we do digress quite a bit from cheese, indeed. If there’s a Digression Swearbox here, I might have to open a tab, or write a significant cheque upfront.
The site I mentioned just upthread does seem to ship to the UK (and worldwide). I won’t link again, lest people think I’m on commission from them – and tragically, I very much am not. They on the face of it should be able to pay it, though, as their markup is eye-watering – and as noted it wasn’t cheap to start with. So you might wish to shop around, but don’t give up hope!
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Don’t worry. You’ve earned your stripes.
Everything’s gravy now.
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Oooo. I feel a little like a Great British Bakeoff contestant in the ‘technical’ round. A presenter has just wheeled out the fancy French title of a dish, and I’m about to have to try to cook something I’ve never even heard of before. As a fan of cooked cheese, and suffering my ancestral weakness for anything deep-fried (https://twitter.com/qikipedia/status/121233925250088961), I’ll admit to being rather intrigued! Yup, that looks to me like very similar sort of cheese/stuff ration to a ‘traditional’ rarebit. Not that I’ve tried making it with gruyère, but I’m assuming it’d give similar results.
So I don’t know if rarebit would quite live up to that sybaritic comparison. OTOH, it’s a whole lot less work to make, without having to make the batter and to deep-fry it.
I can see the attractions of the Mornay sauce approach for the restaurant – have a vat of that on hand, make the toast, pour, done. Or maybe it’s seen as ‘fancier’ than the doorstep of bread and thick cheese goo with ad hoc blisters from under the grill? Not at all what I’d have been hoping for those, I confess.
The variations in this article all seem recognisable to me: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/oct/27/how-to-cook-perfect-welsh-rarebit (It’s one of the Guardian’s frequent tricks of getting a long article out of a very short and pretty simple recipe, but at least under the guise of ‘survey of the field’, rather than those annoying food-blog posts that just waffle and spam on to no purpose.) I commend it in the spirit of culinary experimentation!
I do admit to a slight reservation about the eggs, as I don’t use those myself, and adding a protein-based sauce element seem to be unnecessarily adding a whole extra failure mode to an otherwise very straightforward recipe. OTOH the ‘buck rarebit’ with an added poached egg – now we’re talking!
This whole thread is making me hungry for welsh rarebit or some kind of melty, runny cheese on white toast.
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If you’re talking about the Ninelife outfit, $69 is truly insane pricing for 60-day aged medium Tillamook cheddar, (which is quite ordinary and mediocre, as has been discussed).
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It hit ‘insane’ for me long before that seller quintupled the price, but thought it was interesting proof of concept that it’s available elsewhere. Some optimisation may be beneficial! (It seems to be available via some Amazon vendors too.)
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Yeah, Tillamook medium cheddar isn’t gourmet cheese. It’s something I add to burritos or chili, occasionally to a burger. Readily available in supermarkets and just better than the other supermarket medium cheddars here. Same goes for Tillamook sharp cheddar. It’s good inexpensive cheese. Not something to seek out.
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Lol! Well said.
I was raised on a farm in Iowa. It seemed everyone enjoyed chipped beef on toast there. But I’m hesitant to mention it because maybe it was actually popular in the entire county or perhaps the whole state and not just our small rural village. A pox on me. 
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Make them. They are TOTALLY worth the fuss, although I was pleasantly surprised that the frying step was really no more difficult than frying anything else. I was sure the cheese would fall off the bread or just melt into the oil and create a messy greaseball, but everything adhered and crisped just like magic. Report back after you’ve tried them!
I have tried a few other flavors now and I agree. I only like the maple/pecan one. I think it was the maple flavor I liked more than the ice-cream Itself. I don’t often see maple ice-cream. The other flavors were underwhelming texturewise and much too sweet. I’m glad I did not try the salted caramel. I can only imagine how sweet that would be.
