Right Brain Brewery Planning a Move

Right Brain Brewery may soon be moving to the west side of Boardman Lake.

It’s not as if they have a bad spot right now – in the dynamic warehouse district, across Grandview Parkway from the West Grand Traverse Bay.

“I couldn’t grow my business here anymore – as cool of a location as this is,” owner Russell Springsteen says. “I’m still inside the city limits. I think it’s important to support Traverse City.”

The primary reason he’s moving Right Brain? To expand. If the move goes through, he’ll immediately quadruple his production capacity and increase the size of Right Brain Brewery's loading area. That would allow the brewery to distribute to bars, restaurants and party stores throughout the Lower Peninsula, including the Detroit and Grand Rapids markets. Currently, Right Brain distributes only to northwestern lower Michigan.

Springsteen has asked the city of Traverse City to rezone a 36,000-square-foot, part Quonset hut building at Sixteenth and Cass streets from industrial to commercial/retail. The planning commission will consider the matter on Nov. 1, and the city commission is to have the final say on Nov. 27.

Initially, the brewery will take up about half of that space, but there will be room to grow. Springsteen says he hopes some complementary businesses, such as a metalworking artist, will remain there.

Some who live near the proposed site have expressed concern to the city about noise, traffic and the business’s relatively late hours. The brewery will keep its current hours, which have it closing at midnight on weeknights and 1 a.m. on weekends.

Margaret Swanson, who lives back-to-back with the proposed site, says she’s not going to sweat it.

“I’m not worried about it, as long as they don’t bother us,” she says.

Springsteen would also like to make the brewpub the home of the Traverse City Toxic Cherries roller derby team. He plans to have a track designed into the pub. He figures there’s ample room in the new digs to build an oval that would still allow elbow room for beer-loving spectators.

“Brewers around the country seem to be teaming up with roller derby,” he says. Efforts to reach a representative of the team before deadline were not successful.

Right Brain currently serves food and a full array of its own brews. One of those, Mangalitsa Pig Porter, recently won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver. This smoky porter is brewed with cold, smoked pork from Cherry Capital Foods.

“We thought we were entering something fun and different, but we didn’t know we’d win a gold medal,” Springsteen said.

The new location would also allow Right Brain to expand its offerings, possibly to include some local wines, meads and hard ciders.

Springsteen says he hopes to open the new location in the spring.