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Blue Bee Cider owners Taylor Benson and Mackenzie Smith
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Blue Bee Cider’s new tasting room is located at 4811 Bethlehem Road, off of Staples Mill Road in Richmond, and offers ample parking.
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The bar area inside the Blue Bee Cider tasting room
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Blue Bee Cider has 14 selections on tap in the tasting room. Benson will soon introduce a Petit Manseng grape wine, along with a wine-cider hybrid dubbed Crab Franc, made with crab apples and cabernet franc grapes that have been aged in Catoctin Creek rye whiskey barrels.
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Benson and Smith sourced all the furniture in the tasting room from local thrift stores and Facebook Marketplace.
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Inside the tasting room
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Smith and Benson have been associated with Blue Bee for nearly a decade.
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Guests can also purchase bottles to go from the tasting room.
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A lounge area inside the tasting room is dotted with couches.
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The patio area at Blue Bee
When Taylor Benson and Mackenzie Smith first started working at Blue Bee Cider, it was a weekend gig during college, with those early days spent hand labeling thousands of bottles of cider and helping in the tasting room. They recall when Virginia’s first urban cidery moved from its original home in Manchester to Summit Stables in Scott’s Addition, and those early, scrappier days of pressing their own apples.
And though they didn’t start out hoping to own a cidery, it seems the business chose them. Nearly a decade after joining Blue Bee, they can proudly, and officially, call the cidery their own. About a year after purchasing the business from founder Courtney Mailey, the spouses recently debuted the cidery’s new taproom at 4811 Bethlehem Road in Richmond.
“We had been transparent with Courtney for a while about our goals in life together,” Benson says. “Probably two years before she told us that she was ready to move on and sell the property, I had a sit-down [with her], and I expressed that at some point I wanted to break away and start my own thing and I wanted it to be focused on small batches and an environment that fit who we are, an extension of our home, essentially, a close-knit family thing. She never forgot that.”
In 2022, Mailey addressed the team and announced that she would be stepping away from the business. Unsure of her intentions for the cidery, Benson says, “We started talking to her like, ‘What’s the plan?’” Her response: “I would really love to see y’all cary it on.”
“She was very supportive and very much like, ‘Y’all can do it, no doubt in my mind,’” Smith says. “Even from the very beginning many years ago, she was like, ‘This is something I foresee for you all.’ We learned a lot from her. … We saw it all.”
Despite the unexpected timing, and lacking a business plan or a cushion of capital, they knew an opportunity when they saw it. Paired with Mailey’s blessing, it felt right. Smithfield natives, the high school sweethearts originally moved to Richmond to attend college. Upon arrival, Benson, who had developed a love for craft beverage through his father and older brother, was hoping to dip his toes into the burgeoning beer industry. While scouting potential jobs, he came across an opening at Blue Bee.
He says, “I immediately stared bugging everyone in there, like, ‘How do I get into production? How can I help the cider maker? I want to learn how to make this product.’”
Smith ended up picking up a weekend labeling job at Blue Bee shortly after. Following the cidery’s move to Scott’s Addition, she developed the private events program and also became Mailey’s assistant. “I kind of gradually started doing everything,” she says. “I took it upon myself to put my hat in the ring for everything I possibly could, I’ve worked in the tasting room, worked in the cellar, became the general manager.”
In 2018, Benson settled into the role of head cider maker, responsible for creating some of Blue Bee’s most coveted selections, including Petite Manchurian, the state’s first wine-cider hybrid and one of his most cherished products to date.
Now, the avid Phish fans describe themselves as cider obsessed, and being able to educate imbibers and shift perceptions is a fun challenge. “We like to meet people in the middle, and whether it’s cocktails, beers, what do you generally like to drink. They may have to taste through a couple, but then find themselves loving one of our ciders and being pleasantly surprised,” Smith says.
A bit smaller, cozier and more laid-back than Blue Bee’s previous location, the new taproom features multiple seating areas, including leather couches, a pair of wing chairs by a window and a long bar near the 14 taps pouring single varietals, infusions and barrel-aged options. Outside is a spacious patio and small adjacent green space where they will plant a half-dozen apple trees in the spring.
Embracing their love for music, the current menu is another place where the owners’ personality sparkles. Ciders are listed with short descriptions and song pairings. Drinking the blackberry- and raspberry-infused Mill Race Bramble, they recommend Prince’s “Raspberry Beret,” while their Hopsap Shandy calls for Bob Marley’s “Sun Is Shining.”
Benson says having the opportunity to start fresh with an established brand, while downsizing and being able to focus more on production and in-house programming rather than seeking shelf space for distribution, allows them to offer a wider variety of beverages. “On my end of things, I’m producing the same quantity as the past couple of harvests, but my volume can rotate through tanks quicker than I used to be, so I actually have some more room for creativity,” he says.
Leaning in to who they are, and establishing their own identity for the cidery, they say the transition has been rewarding, though they have had to reassure some customers that their roots remain the same and they are indeed still a Richmond-based cidery.
“Richmond has always been our home for Blue Bee, and technically it still is; this is Richmond city,” Smith says of the Bethlehem Road site. “I’m very happy with what we’ve done here. [The previous location] was Courtney, and she did an amazing job and worked really hard for that space and it was beautiful, but this is now ours, and we want to focus on that. We’re very confident in this decision, and it’s really perfect and exactly what we were looking for.”
Blue Bee Cider is open 4 to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, noon to 9 p.m. on Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday.
