Brewing good beer takes time. So does building a brewery. And right now, the Kalispell Brewing Company is still fermenting.

But all the needed ingredients are in place for Montana’s biggest city without a brewery to finally get one.

“Right now this is pretty much my project full-time,” said Cole Schneider, a home brewer for 10 years. “I love beer, I love making beer. And for a long time I’ve wanted to do it on a scale bigger than five gallons at a time.”

Schneider and his wife, Maggie Doherty, are working to open Kalispell Brewing Company in a 9,000-square-foot building at the corner of Fourth and Main streets.

The two-story building dates back to 1937 and once housed a Cadillac dealership. Demolition work going on inside and word of a new brewery in the works has drawn significant community interest.

“People are getting excited,” Doherty said. “We get calls and emails and everyone wants to know the opening date.”

That’s still a few months off at least. Even after the interior demolition and remodeling work is done, it will take six to eight weeks to brew the first round of beer to sell. Ideally, everything would be ready to go by late spring or early summer.

The project has posed a few challenges for Schneider and Doherty, who live in Whitefish and are both skiers on the United States Telemark Ski Association National Team.

Parts of the old building did not meet code and needed new structural steel beams put in. Other parts needed asbestos taken out. And a crew of masons has been working full-time for a month and a half to repair interior walls.

A half-dozen barrels for the 300-gallon brewery unexpectedly showed up for delivery on New Year’s Eve. That evening a trucker called Schneider to say he was in Kalispell and waiting for someone to unload his 54-foot trailer.

“The construction crew was off and we didn’t have a forklift so we had to scramble to find somebody to unload it,” Schneider said. “I’m sure we’ll have a few more moments like that.”

But the brewery is shaping up to be a great adventure for the couple, married last September in Glacier National Park.

Schneider and Doherty met a few years ago on Big Mountain when they were training for a national telemark championship the ski resort hosted. “We found out that not only do we both like skiing, we both like beer, too,” Doherty said.

Competitive skiing has taken the couple to mountains throughout Europe. And their interest in beer has led them to visit numerous brauhauses along the way. They envision Kalispell Brewing Company being a welcoming and laid-back community-gathering place with music, some open-mic nights and, of course, a rotating selection of five to seven great beers brewed by Schneider.

“We don’t really care if you know your hops from your malts or your grains. We just like beer, so we want to have an unassuming feel to all the beverages we offer and just have people like them,” Doherty said.

Craft breweries are a growing industry in Montana.

A study by the University of Montana Bureau of Business and Economic Research last October found the state’s 33 craft brewers represent more than 430 jobs, $50 million in sales, $9.8 million in wages and $1.5 million in state government revenues, according to the Montana Brewer’s Association.

While still in the middle of building their own dream brewery with a long way to go, Schneider and Doherty are eager to join the Flathead Valley’s other brewers. Those include Glacier Brewing Company in Polson, Tamarack Brewing Company in Lakeside, Flathead Lake Brewing Company in Bigfork, Great Northern Brewing Company in Whitefish and the soon-to-open Desert Mountain Brewing and Draughthaus in Columbia Falls.

“It’s nice to not feel alone in the endeavor and see people are passionate about making and drinking beer in Northwest Montana,” Doherty said.

And Schneider and Doherty are betting there’s no better place for a new brewery than downtown Kalispell.

“It’s just a really cool building at a great location and we’re excited to see what’s going to happen,” Doherty said.

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.