
Bee Well’s Beaver Island Cider
Bottoms Up
By Alex Tank | Jan. 25, 2020
If you can’t escape the depths of winter, try time travelling back a few months with a pint of Bee Well’s Beaver Island Cider. Tart and tannic, it’s the taste of bright fall sunshine and harvest-time winds off Lake Michigan. This year’s batch of Beaver Island cider was fermented with wild apples collected on the island. The foraging team was led by mead and cider-maker and Bee Well co-owner, Jeremy VanSice: “The back roads are little apple forests. It’s amazing!” Trees first planted by early immigrants in the mid-1800s bear fruit of several antique varieties, so the cider is never the same twice.
This third annual iteration has a pleasantly funky aroma (due to its wild yeast fermentation) and brings a refreshing, green apple flavor mid-palate, then a dry finish. Jeremy and the VanSice family have been fermenting mead and cider at their Bellaire production facility since 2014. In May 2018, they opened a cozy tasting room in the heart of downtown Bellaire.
There’s a simultaneous après-ski and Cheers vibe inside the comfortable space. More often than not, thirsty guests are greeted by name. On our visit, a classic Violent Femmes record spun on the turntable as the freshly tapped Beaver Island cider flowed. The mead — a traditional honey wine — is a bit stronger than the cider and well worth sampling, too. Find Bee Well Mead and Cider at 116 N. Bridge St. in Bellaire. (231) 350-7174, www.beewellmeadery.com
Trending

Meet the Karens
Every so often, Northern Express includes stories suggested by readers. This is one such story, and it came from Ada Takacs.… Read More >>
Summer Adventures Await: 22 Events Happening Up North This July
We all know about the big festivals happening around the North in high summer. So we skipped the obvious and dove into these… Read More >>
Sixty Years of Alpenfest
Sixty years—can you believe it?! This Alpenfest will be one for the books, and all the fun runs from July 8-12 in Gayl… Read More >>