Nothing about cheese requires alcohol. What clears the fat from your mouth is bubbles and acidity, and neither of those needs to come from a drink you can get drunk on.
Beer does three things; two need no alcohol
Pull apart why beer works with cheese and you get three things: bubbles lifting the fat, malt sweetness meeting the salt, and a drink mild enough not to bury the cheese. Alcohol has its own job on top of that — but those first two do not need it. Acidity belongs in the same place: the acidity in a white wine rinses the fat off almost any cheese, and it is the same acidity apple juice carries.
Sparkling water does most of it
Sparkling water plays the same part the bubbles in wine do, scrubbing the fat off as you go. It takes the creamy ones and the salty ones alike. For a cheese as salty as feta, our card puts lemon in the water.
Our cards send these three to sparkling water.
Tea, and what the tannin does
Black tea carries tannin, which is what firm aged cheese wants. Lapsang souchong, with smoke in it, is especially good against cheddar. There is a way in at the soft end too — cream cheese takes black tea as readily as it takes coffee. Serving it hot helps: with raclette, Switzerland pours hot tea alongside.
Worth trying against a pot of tea.
Coffee goes to the creamy end
Coffee brings bitterness and roast, which is why it lands on the creamy cheeses. Cream cheese and cottage cheese take a cup of it; mascarpone takes espresso.
Keep a cup beside these.
Apple juice and alcohol-free cider
Acidity and sweetness together make it hard to put wrong, and it is really the teetotal version of something Normandy has done for a very long time: camembert with a glass of cider.
Cider is what the cards give all three.
Salty cheese wants something sweet
Where salt arrives first, sweetness is what answers it, and lemonade against halloumi is where that lands. The same card pairs it with watermelon and grilled vegetables for exactly that reason — the drink runs on the same axis.
The salty one.