Not Far From the Tree

Blue Bee Cider employees step into new roles as owners

by Bird Cox

April 5, 2023

9:15 AM

The new owners of Blue Bee Cider, Taylor Benson and Mackenzie Smith (Photo by Julianne Tripp)

In 2013, Courtney Mailey stepped away from finance and took a wild, rewarding risk: She opened Blue Bee Cider in Manchester, marking Richmond’s first foray into local cider. It was also the first urban cidery in Virginia, and during its 10-year run, Mailey and her team’s dedication to rare, Virginia-only heirloom apples and expressive products have made Blue Bee a name known throughout the commonwealth and beyond. Now, Mailey has made the choice to step away again.

Much like the rest of Blue Bee’s continuing story, Mailey’s decision is aligned with deeply held personal values. Her parents are getting older, and this change will allow her to be closer to them. “There’s no point in being surprised by the inevitable in life,” Mailey says. “Our needs change; we get older. I don’t want to be in the middle of a harvest if they need help. I wanted to transition before a crisis happened.”

Mailey says that when she reached the heart-wrenching decision last year, that she approached her core group of long-term employees about the opportunity to take over the cidery. Over the years, Mailey’s active attention to the ideas of everyone on board built much trust among the crew, and the duo are familiar with how she navigated production, pioneered through experimentation, established connections and built community. Which is why Blue Bee Cider Event Coordinator and Assistant General Manager Mackenzie Smith and Cidermaker Taylor Benson said “yes.”

For Mailey, the passing of the torch doesn’t feel like a risk at all. “They both have the passion and drive to make it successful, and they’re young enough to do what it takes,” she says.

Smith and Benson, both 30, met at Smithfield High School. They became high school sweethearts, moved to Richmond to attend VCU and lived together during college before landing at Blue Bee while finishing their degrees.

Smith started with Blue Bee as a bottle labeler. When the cidery moved from its original location in Manchester to its current Summit Stables spot in Scott’s Addition, she became Mailey’s assistant. The new building afforded them the space to establish a thriving events program and host weekend markets, pop-ups and even a small cheese shop on the premises that was once occupied by Truckle Cheesemongers.

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Blue Bee founder Courtney Mailey with one of the first apple deliveries to the Manchester cidery (Photo courtesy Courtney Mailey)

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Blue Bee’s Petit Manchurian (Photo courtesy Blue Bee Cider)

Benson originally started working at Blue Bee in the tasting room before moving to the cellar and eventually the production side of the venture as he dove deeper into the craft of cidermaking. After carefully following recipes to produce the company’s flagship products, he was given free rein to produce something of his own inspiration when he settled into the role of head cidermaker in 2018.

“My favorite product I ever made was Petit Manchurian, the state’s first vino cider,” Benson says. “At the time, we didn’t have a title for that, we just called it a wine hybrid. I thought about how we hadn’t worked with wine grapes, so we got our hands on some petit manseng, fermented it with some Manchurian crabapple, and it came out so delicate and unique. … That was my first ‘Oh, wow,’ and it won a couple of awards. To this day, batch one of that product was my most proud moment of making something.”

The cider adventure has been the adventure of a lifetime for me ... I’m really proud to see Kenzie and Taylor take this adventure up for themselves. I can’t wait to see them spread their wings.

—Courtney Mailey

As of mid-March, Blue Bee continues to operate at Summit Stables in Scott’s Addition. The couple are currently renting out a portion of the space and running a scaled-down version of the operation with the tasting room, patio and Cider Salon open. In December 2022, the building that housed the cidery was sold for $2.9 million. Smith and Benson have plans to secure a new space for the cidery, while remaining in the same ZIP code.

Blue Bee’s lineup of flagship products and single varietals, such as the semi-dry, Albemarle Pippin-based Aragon 1904 or the super-dry Charred Ordinary, with its tart backbone of wild crab- and Winesap- apples, will remain unchanged, as will local distribution arrangements.

Longtime patrons can also look forward to seeing the same familiar faces working at the cidery.

“Our goal is to bring some beloved staff members back who are irreplaceable and fantastic at what they do, and our Cider Club and regulars will be excited to see them,” Smith says. “Something we miss about the time when this was a niche industry was that you always got to meet the owners, but you don’t really get that intimacy now. It’s less personable. We want to bring that back.”

Blue Bee Cider barrels (Photo by Justin Chesney)

Other plans for the forthcoming cidery include new equipment, and with it, new small-batch releases. “I’ll be producing on a smaller scale to streamline some of my processes and rotate through tanks more frequently, and I’ll be able to get more creative and do more batches in the 250- to 500-gallon range rather than 1,500 to 2,000,” says Benson, who will also up the number of bar taps to 15. “That’s what I’m really looking forward to.”

And thus, Blue Bee lives on, with a bountiful future in store, and Mailey’s efforts to educate others about a product rich in flavor, nuance and Virginia history will continue.

“The cider adventure has been the adventure of a lifetime for me,” she says. “I hope to keep my hands in the cider industry through competitions and keeping up with the friendships I’ve made. I’m really proud to see Kenzie and Taylor take this adventure up for themselves. I can’t wait to see them spread their wings.”

by Bird Cox

April 5, 2023

9:15 AM