Two homebrewers have teamed up to start Victor’s newest purveyor of barley pop, Guidepost Brewing.

Between them, Chris Macchietto and Steve Smit (known to most as Smitty) have over three decades of homebrewing experience, but neither had ever worked in a production brewery before launching Guidepost Brewing in the basement below Chiang Mai Thai Kitchen. They installed five taps in the restaurant around a month ago and say that the response from the community, just through word of mouth, has been great.

When he lived in Colorado, Macchietto was accustomed to seeing “19 breweries per block,” and said when he came to Teton Valley that he started to realize there’s space here for another beer maker, “and people wanted it.” That’s when he began the planning phase for a large brewhouse, taproom, eatery and coffee roastery (Alpine Air is making the move to join Guidepost) on West Center Street in Victor, on the lot between Food Shed Idaho and AmeriAsia. For now, as the initial infrastructure is put in the ground, he’s operating a much smaller brewhouse right in the middle of town.

Smitty and Macchietto met through Highpoint Cider, where Macchietto was working a shift behind the bar and Smitty was helping the brewhouse troubleshoot its centrifuge, and giving out tasters of his own dry-hopped cider.

The pair share a passion for legacy breweries like Odell in Fort Collins, Colorado, and Russian River in Santa Rosa, California, as well as some of the much smaller beer makers around the country who don’t even distribute.

“We agreed on making beers that inspire people — giving people something they’d never had before or something they say they don’t like, and then getting to watch them experience it,” Smitty said.

Along with a guest tap at Highpoint Cider, Guidepost has cultivated a vital relationship with the crew at Chiang Mai, where you can find all of the brewery’s regular beers as well as small batch experiments. Front of house manager Bella is the brewery’s biggest proponent, always encouraging customers to try a beer, and owners Patrick and Sopidta Murphy have been essential partners in the process (and will manage the restaurant at the new taproom, too).

“They are like family to us and have really made a huge positive difference,” Macchietto said about the Murphys. “Patrick will be in charge of the new kitchen, and it won’t be the same menu as Chiang Mai, but whatever it is, you know it’ll be good.”

Right now, Guidepost’s offerings range from a big fruity hazy IPA, to a sweetly sour blackberry gose, to a quaffable brown, to the VBR, their answer to PBR drinkers who want a light, clear and bready lager.

Smitty said he used to focus on high-ABV, bitter West Coast IPAs, until Macchietto challenged him by handing him some new recipes. Now he loves to brew it all.

“We both have science backgrounds, and brewing beer is like combining science and art, technique and creativity,” Smitty said.

“And then you get to drink it,” Macchietto added.

Connecting with the substantial brewing community in the Tetons has paid dividends.

“It’s cool to get positive feedback and help from other brewers. We’re pretty tight with a lot of them,” Macchietto said. “We’d love to do some collaborations once we can keep up with what we have going on right now. I have never respected people more who have started a brewery — it’s a lot of work.”

Smitty added that other brewers have been extremely generous in a pinch, supplying kegs or advice, and Guidepost wants to extend that help to fellow beermakers in the future.

They hope to have the building erected on West Center before the snow flies, and dream of a spring or summer opening in 2023. For now, they don’t have any plans for packaging or distribution; they want to focus on selling in the taproom and to restaurants.

“The philosophy is to keep the beer small and simple, high quality, true to style,” Macchietto said. “Not watered down or cheap. We’re keeping it small but having a blast. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, if you’re not doing what you love, what’s the point?”