Zen Bee crafting session meads in Worthington

A new meadery is creating “buzz” in the Worthington area.

Zen Bee Meadery is the creation of Dan DeMura, who fell in love with mead — wine made from honey — back in 2010 and began homebrewing it with his son, Yuuki. After winning first place in the 2017 Ohio State Fair mead homebrew competition for his Jacked Cherry mead, DeMura decided to pursue it as a business.

Zen Bee is located in a 900 sq ft facility in Worthington. The space comprises a small taproom which doubles as the production space when its not open to the public during limited hours. DeMura currently produces about four barrels of mead per month but is working to scale that up.

“The demand is there, I could set up 20 more accounts next week, but we need to make sure we can keep the shelves stocked,” said JC DeMura, Dan’s brother and Zen Bee’s Brand Ambassador. “Right now we’re focused on building backstock, especially for our most popular flavors.”

While the meadery does not currently offer regular hours, they host “Open Houses” about twice a month on Saturdays from 2-7pm, with the next slated for July 28. You can follow them on Facebook to find out when they’ll be open next. During their open houses, flights of four meads are available for $9 with bottles retailing for $10.

“Right now we are focused on production, however we do want to get to a place where we are having regular hours on Saturdays, maybe also Fridays, but that will probably be toward the end of the summer,” said Dan.

Zen Bee Meadery primarily focuses on “session meads,” which clock in at a lower-than-average 6.5% ABV.

“It’s easier to experiment with flavors by doing session meads,” said Dan. “I also think there’s also a lot of room in the market for session meads because they appeal to people, even beer drinkers who may not necessarily like wine.”

Zen Bee meads are made with all-natural ingredients and utilize local honey as much as possible possible, although special varieties, such as carrot blossom honey, are sourced from outside the state. The meadery has created over a dozen flavors, with the current available lineup including Peach Mango, Pear of Peaches, Orange Dreamsicle, Braspberry and Chai. The meadery’s first full strengh (11% ABV) mead, Cherry Blossom, will be out in a few weeks.

Outside of the tasting room, Zen Bee meads are currently carried at Weiland’s Market in Clintonville, Aficionado’s in Lewis Center, and Kindred Brewing in Gahanna. Weiland’s has a Zen Bee tasting scheduled for August 10 from 4-7pm; Aficionado’s has a tasting on August 24 from 6-8pm.

Zen Bee Meadery is located at 7472 Reliance Street in Worthington.