Right Brain Brewery | Traverse City, MI
Beer Trip: Right Brain Brewery in Traverse City, Michigan
The Traverse City area is home to a surprising number of craft breweries, so with only a few days to spend in town we did our best to hit some of the most recommended hot spots. One of those was Right Brain Brewing, located directly in town and only a short drive from our Airbnb. This place far exceeded our expectations and provided plenty of entertainment for both us and Warren (even at only 17 months old).
The Brewery
Right Brain is located somewhat off on its own, so you will find plenty of street parking surrounding the place. Walking up, you go past their nice-sized outdoor patio that holds space for multiple food trucks. Contrary to many other breweries where the outdoor space is the place to be, you’ll see quickly why the inside is a top attraction once you enter through their doors. Immediately you are taken aback by how big the place is, filled with pinball machines as far as the eye can see. This place is essentially a brewery inside of an arcade, offering the perfect spot to bring the family.
The walls and ceiling feature quirky items such as the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo, a massive replica of a spaceship from Star Wars, and various local artwork available for sale. The games all line the outer walls, with the middle part of the space reserved for tables and chairs. The back wall features a large, L-shaped bar where you place and receive all drink orders. With so much going on here, one could come back day after day and experience something new.
Warren was fascinated with the pinball!
The Beer
One of the best and most unique flights we’ve had!
You won’t find many breweries out there with as many different taps as Right Brain, as they feature 30 brews at any given time! It actually requires 3 different screens to display everything that they have to offer. As you can imagine having so many beers, they vary their styles greatly featuring wheats, cream ales, reds, IPAs, stouts, and barrel-aged brews. We didn’t try them this time, but they even have a mixology menu where they pour a glass half-full of one brew and top it off with another, giving you one mixed beer. While we’ve seen this before at bars utilizing Guinness, this is the first time we’ve seen it at a brewery.
One might ask - “How can a place create 30 different beers that all taste differently?” Well, Right Brain does this better than anywhere we’ve seen across the country and utilizes ingredients that you would never imagine in a beer. In fact, their Pig Porter made with real smoked pig heads is one that put them on the map by winning them a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival.
Our favorite of the trip, and one of the more unique beers out there, is their Spear Beer. This ale is very light and brewed with tons of asparagus. It is so different that it makes it tough to describe its flavor profile, but we agreed that “earthy” fits it well. One more worth mentioning is the Thai Peanut, which is a brown ale that literally tastes like Thai food in a glass. It has the perfect amount of spice to go with a rich peanut butter flavor and is very well done.
Food, Merch, & More
Food from the French food truck!
Right Brain shares a building with a salon and, while we aren’t sure if they are technically associated with each other, there are large windows for patrons getting their hair done to look out into the brewery. If you come to the brewery hungry, Right Brain sells pretzels and chips and also typically has 2 food trucks out front. You’ll be given a buzzer to let you know when things are ready for pickup!
The merchandise section is rather robust, featuring tons of to-go beer, hats, shirts, koozies, and even a Right Brain tap handle (which we were very tempted to purchase).
Food trucks of the day
So many to-go beer options!
After experiencing the place for ourselves, it’s easy to see why so many people recognize Right Brain as a brewery destination in the area. We would recommend it to anyone and hope to visit again someday!
Cheers!
PS: Shoutout to the kindness of the staff who didn’t bat an eye when Warren spilled a beer glass from our flight board. We apologize and can’t tell you how much we appreciate how cool you were about it!
Pretty impressive mug club
