14th Star Brewing Co.

Steve Gagner and Matt Kehaya, homebrewers and brothers in arms, wrote the plan for this brewery in a notebook while serving in Afghanistan. They opened it in St. Albans, Vermont, in 2012 on Lower Newton Street, brewing on a 3.5-barrel pilot system they built by hand from retrofitted maple sap collection tanks. The name honors Vermont's place as the fourteenth state to join the Union. The brewery and taproom now stand at 133 North Main Street, pouring IPAs, a Mexican-style lager and a maple breakfast stout.