Boy brews beer. Girl drinks cider. Boy meets girl, makes her cider and eventually wins her over. Now boy and girl make cider as Chicago’s first licensed cidery, Right Bee Cider. Tenured brewer Charlie Davis and cider enthusiast Katie Morgan launched their urban cidery in late 2014, providing the cider-happy city with its own apple tipple. Today, from their newer, much larger facility, Right Bee has hired their first employee, started bottling and is now supplying their singular, eponymous cider to more than 50 different bars and restaurants in the Windy City.
A truly handmade operation — from the tap handles to the PowerPoint-created logo — Right Bee sources its juice from family-run juicers on the East Coast, fermenting to dryness then back-sweetening with a mixture of organic sugar and Chicago honey. The couple even has aspirations to soon harvest honey from their own beehives atop the production facility once they get the green light from the city.
The semi-dry cider is left cloudy and unfiltered, a trademark from Davis’ years in brewing, homing in on pure apple aromas and flavors. Golden apple, sun-soaked apple leaf and soft honeycomb scents waft when poured, leaving the evident notes to the palate with an apple-forward, slightly honeyed flavor. The cider leaves the mouth with a round texture and refreshing finish, an easy quaffer worth savoring.
