More Room to Pour

What’s on tap for northern Michigan’s satellite breweries

As millions of visitors make their way through Traverse City’s summer maze of road construction and traffic jams, Scott Stuhr is hoping some of those visitors veer to the West Side.

That’s where he and his wife and business partner, Leah, recently opened their newest Silver Spruce Brewing-branded taproom at the intersection of Zimmerman and Silver Lake Roads.
Following the success of their original spot, which opened in 2018 on Eighth Street and is now a favorite for families and pet owners (their patio is dog friendly!), the new location celebrated its soft launch at the end of last summer and sits right next to Francisco’s Market and Deli.

It’s “a pretty simple space,” as Stuhr describes it. A minimalistic aesthetic and industrial finishes make the satellite location a cool reprieve from the sun where folks can chill with a Dunkelweizen or Ryed Ale paired with a basket of beer-battered onion rings from Francisco’s while they plot which beach to hit next.

Landing so far off Traverse City’s walkable side is the biggest difference between the new Silver Lake location versus the original Eighth Street spot. After some brainstorming on how to expand sales, the Stuhrs realized that, “The only real way to increase sales is to increase sales across the bar. And the only real way to do that is to really have another box. If we could be creative and just have more people come into our original location, then we would probably choose that route.” But, he explains, between the seasonality of that spot and reaching capacity during their busiest late summer and early fall months, “You can only really do that so far.”

And adding a food menu to boost their bottom line was always a no-go for the Stuhrs. They’d rather stick to brewing and pulling drafts while leaving the bites to the restaurateurs. On Eighth Street, food truck Bull and The Bear is stationed out front to serve up Bavarian classics like pierogies and cucumber salad to peckish brewery-goers.

So when the Stuhrs heard their friends at Francisco’s were looking to fill their adjacent open unit (and that Francisco’s already had a full-service kitchen staffed to sling out pizzas and other pubfare) they jumped. Though its first winter was a bit slow, the new taproom is finding its following, especially with those that want to avoid the in-town brouhaha of summer. “It’s definitely starting to pick up now,” says Stuhr. “We’re really happy with both of our spots.”

No Menu, No Problem

Silver Spruce isn’t the only northern Michigan brewery foregoing their own menu and instead building expansion plans around established kitchens.

Just a mile east of Silver Spruce’s Eighth Street location is Oakwood Proper Burgers, a tiny smashburger joint where customers can carry piles of parmesan garlic fries right over to Tank Space and grab a crisp IPA or hard cider to wash it all down.

Tank Space, a taproom splashed with wall-to-wall color, opened in spring 2024 after the owners of Oakwood Proper Burgers (Leslie Bilbey and Josh Gray) began searching for the right tenant to fill the building they’d purchased next door. They found it in Jamie and Andrew Kidwell-Brix, co-owners of Earthen Ales, a brewery in The Village at Grand Traverse Commons.

The Kidwell-Brixes launched Tank Space as a satellite taproom to Earthen Ales and fully leaned into the cosmic “space” theme. “The concept was that it would have its own unique look and feel, and it didn’t necessarily have to read as a brewery,” says Andrew Kidwell-Brix. The galactic name, he explains, was a play on words: a nod to both the brewing tanks and the symbolic connection between an “earthen” home world and a satellite.

At both locations, the Kidwell-Brixes rely on nearby restaurants to keep their visitors satiated while they sip. And, like Stuhr, they have no plans to open their own kitchen. “It allows us to have a lot of fun working with other businesses,” says Kidwell-Brix. “We can host food trucks, and we can have The Cheese Lady come and do a grilled cheese pop-up, and do things that we otherwise would be kind of closed off to.”

One of those things is crafting unique pour menus for each of their locations, like Earthen’s “Ale of the Earth” and Tank Space’s “Tanky Stardust.”

“The idea of having a space that could have a slightly different lineup of beers and give us an opportunity to brew more of a variety… that has always appealed to us,” says Kidwell-Brix, who adds that Tank Space’s stellar appearance, with its colorful window paintings and wall murals reminiscent of Space Invaders, has helped them stand out, sometimes just by drawing in people who mistake the taproom for an arcade.

“We try to make sure we put the words ‘beer, cider, and wine’ on the front windows in big letters to help reduce the confusion about what Tank Space is.”

Making a Right Out of Wrong (Turns)

Mistaken identity turned into a business opportunity for Joe Short, founder of Short’s Brewing Company in Bellaire, where his microbrewery campus has brought beer, bands, and bites to North Bridge Street for the past two decades.

About 25 miles away in Elk Rapids sits Short’s main production facility, an industrial operation that, nearly 10 years ago, had little more than tanks, packaging equipment, and storage space.

But on weekends, while working at the facility, Short began noticing something curious if not a little sad: Cars pulling into the lot expecting a taproom or bar, only to realize they’d arrived at a glorified warehouse.

“So then I was like, well, maybe we should just… clear a little section of this building out and go almost farmer-stand style—cut some holes in the end of the building and make it so the windows would flip up and we have packaged beer to go.”

Short did just that and called it The Pull Barn. Over the years, it was such a hit that it eventually became a year-round taproom with indoor and outdoor seating. He describes it as a distinctly different experience from the original Bellaire location, which houses a full-service pub and a beer garden that hosts live music throughout the summer.

That Bellaire operation takes a team of 50 to pull off, and its beer garden acts like an overflow lounge where diners waiting on a table at the always-hopping pub can grab a drink, a snack, and enjoy some jams while they wait.

The Pull Barn, which employs about half a dozen year-round employees and adds a few extra for the summer boom, offers a scaled-down version of that vibe, including its own summer music lineup, food trucks like Flannagan’s Goat and Osorio Tacos Y Salsas, and of course, Short’s beer.

Both locations offer a slightly different variety of 20 beers on tap, and the selection rotates based on the season. “We’re running really lean and nimble,” Short says of managing both locations. “And we have a small team and we’re ambitious and we bite off a lot,” he adds, explaining the brand’s ethos of the power of smallness.

“It gives us a lot of flexibility to do things and pivot if needed on really short notice. So if we want to bring a food truck into Elk Rapids or change a menu item in Bellaire, a lot of these things we can do super quickly because there aren’t a lot of administrative layers or approvals that you need to work through.”

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