Periodic Table Of Cheese, La Cave à Fromage, Western Road, Hove, Sunday, December 7: 7pm, £15. Visit www.theperiodictableofcheese.com or call 01273 725500.

THINK you could tell an aged Gouda cheese from a Gruyère? Cheese-lover Dan Akers says it is harder than you might imagine.

He designed the popular Periodic Table Of Cheese posters and runs game-show style tasting events in which guests battle it out using only their tastebuds.

“It is almost impossible to tell the difference between Gouda and Gruyère,” he says.

“A lot of people say, ‘I thought it was the other way round: the Gouda was the Gruyère and vice versa’. But they are far more similar than you would think.”

Akers believes the subtle taste differences between goats cheeses make them equally difficult to identify. And he is laying down the gauntlet to Brightonians as he brings his first tasting event on the south coast to the city.

“It’s a cross between a cheese tasting event and a game show and it is really exciting – the last two events have gone to the final round.”

His event at La Cave à Fromage on Sunday will only be his third event after editions in Leeds and Coventy. He goes to venues and towns recommended to him by fans of his Periodic Table Of Cheese Facebook page which has more than 6,000 users.

In the game teams of contestants taste ten mystery cheeses and use the periodic table Akers designed to identify the correct names.

There are prizes, and crackers and fruit and butter are served with the cheese. After an hour of tasting there is a break before everyone gathers around a screen to see where the chosen ones lie on the periodic table. The winners are those who make the most correct matches.

“The table makes it fun and makes you really consider what you taste,” says Akers, who also believes the table rids the event of any food snobbery.

“It is not exclusive at all. The elements are arranged by complexity left to right and consistency top to bottom. Even if you taste a cheese and you have no idea what it is you can make a guess based on the area of the table and get close.”

By day Akers is a business analyst who is contracted by firms to run brainstorming workshops.

As a distraction from tedious business topics he covers at work he decided to do food-based events on the side.

He decided cheese would work after designing a Periodic Table Of Chocolate Bars.

“The chocolate event was good fun – though it didn’t work as well as I imagined because everyone slipped into sugar coma halfway through the event. I’ve never seem a room filled with people who need their arms twisted to get them to eat chocolate.”

To design the Periodic Table Of Cheese he arranged a series of large scale tasting events where, with the attendees, he tasted 150 cheeses.

“We would talk it about and they would say left of cheddar, south of Edam. It was surprisingly democratic. There have been periodic tables of beers and snacks and it is basically one guy in his room in his pants deciding. This was interactive.”

La Cave à Fromage’s manager David Deaves says the venue will be serving wine by the glass or by the bottle and is looking forward to hosting the event.

“It is a really interesting way of introducing people to cheese or if you are a cheese lover it’s a great way of putting together your favourites on the periodic table to see where they come. It’s going to be a fun evening.”