New Enon Brewing plans craft-lager taproom for community gatherings

A two-year wait is ending in Enon, and New Enon Brewing is betting that a small, lager-first taproom can become the kind of place people keep coming back to for a pint, a food truck stop and a neighborhood gathering.

The brewery’s grand opening is set for May 23, 2026, with a ribbon cutting at 11:00 a.m. at 160 North Xenia Drive in Enon, Ohio 45323. Jon Vanderglas and Shelley Wiley are listed as the owners, with Vanderglas as head brewer, and the building is about 3,000 square feet, a scale that points more toward a local hangout than a production-heavy destination.

That scale fits the business choice behind the project. The Ohio Craft Brewers Association describes New Enon Brewing as lager focused, with a taproom, food trucks and other classic beer styles, and the brewery’s Facebook page says, “We will be making lagers and other beers for the Enon metro area.” In a market crowded with breweries chasing every style trend at once, New Enon is making a narrower promise and leaning into it.

Vanderglas’s background explains why the brewery’s identity looks so deliberate. New Enon Brewing’s website says he started homebrewing in the 1990s, then moved with Wiley to Fargo/Moorhead in 2001, where he joined a homebrew club. The couple moved back to Enon in 2007 to be closer to family, and Vanderglas kept homebrewing. That path gives the project a homegrown feel that matches the message on the wall: this is supposed to be brewed for Enon, not dropped into it from somewhere else.

The long runway matters, too. Dayton Daily News reported in 2024 that New Enon Brewing was expected to open that June, making the May 2026 opening a much longer climb than originally planned. For a small-town brewery, the delay only sharpens the question now in front of Vanderglas and Wiley: can a focused beer program and a strong local identity build the kind of repeat traffic that keeps a taproom durable outside a major metro?

Ohio’s broader craft beer numbers suggest the strategy has room to work. The Ohio Craft Brewers Association says the state had 442 craft breweries at the end of 2024, producing about 1.15 million barrels and generating $1.29 billion in economic output. The association also says breweries that responded to its survey donated about $1.5 million to charitable causes and gave thousands of volunteer hours, a reminder that the best brewery models in smaller communities often succeed by becoming part of the civic routine as much as the beer list.

The long wait to get to 160 North Xenia Drive made the point clear before the doors even opened: New Enon Brewing is not trying to be everything to every drinker. It is trying to be the place in town where the lagers pour, the regulars return and the room feels like Enon.