DALTON, Ga. — The four founders of Dalton Brewing Co. are aiming to be the first folks in Dalton to make local beer from scratch to pour, but more than that they hope their company will be a catalyst for a blossoming social scene in downtown.

“We’ve come a long away, which is great,” said Deanna Mathis, one of the four. “We’ve always centered on downtown Dalton as our location because two of us are from here and all of us are passionate about downtown and really believe it can be something greater.”

Mathis, a Dalton resident who recently has moved from full time to part time as an industrial engineer with Shaw to focus on the brewery, has partnered with Grey Dziuba, who worked as an automaticion engineer at Shaw, Dalton native Drew Michaels and Michaels’ brother-in-law and local attorney Chris Brown to create the beer brewing company. (There is also a fifth partner, if you count Champ the Brew Dog, a golden retriever mix. More on this later.)

Mathis and Brown stopped by the Dalton Citizen-News recently to talk about their new company, which will be in the old Hurt’s Cleaners building at 112 W. King St., which has sat empty since a fire destroyed the business in November 2010.

What the group hopes to open in early 2018 will be less of a bar scene and more of a family-oriented, low key hangout spot. Kids will be welcome, and because they won’t be serving food, dogs will be allowed, too. State law will only allow them to serve their own beers, but patrons will be welcome to bring in food from home or other downtown businesses.

“The cool thing about not serving food is that dogs are allowed, and my dog Champ is already lined up to the Brew Dog, so you’ll see him hanging out, and he is a rescue from the Humane Society, which is pretty cool,” said Mathis of her four-legged friend.

Mathis and Dziuba, who worked at Shaw together, are both home brewers. Brown and Michaels have both dabbled in home brewing as well. The team has been working on their concept for a brewing company in Dalton since last year, but the gears have actually began turning now that they’ve bought the equipment they need from a company in Knoxville, Tenn., and are already working on the space that will house their brewery. They planned to scrap the walls clean of plaster Sunday, weather permitting.

The founders hope that having two engineers on the team will make their brewing experience a little different from all the other similar companies — their slogan is “good beer, engineered” — but they also like to point out that Dalton is in somewhat of a “brewing desert,” with the closest production breweries in Chattanooga, Tenn., Blue Ridge and Kennesaw. Cherokee Brewing and Pizza Co. in downtown Dalton also brews beer, but the entire process is not done on site.

“With the engineering background that our group has, specifically in process and automation, we will be able to achieve the same production and quality standards that are typically found at larger breweries,” said Dziuba via email.

While they haven’t yet decided what their “to go” business will look like, they know they hope to move kegs to local bars and restaurants they have already built relationships with, as well as others in the region. They’ll probably offer growlers on site until the business grows enough to warrant cans or bottles sold by the case.

The group began laying the groundwork for their business ahead of Georgia Senate Bill 85, which allows small brewers to sell directly to their customers. That law, which takes effect in Sept. 1, was very serendipitous for the group, as being allowed to sell directly to the customer can only be a boon for Dalton Brewing Co., they said.

Dalton Brewing Co. is planning on an early 2018 opening, but they still have the build out and the federal application process to get through before the doors can open. In the meantime, they are doing a lot of research and development with friends and neighbors, working on India pale ales and dark beers, and they plan to offer a rotating variety of between four and eight different beers at any given time.

Brown said the location they picked is near perfect.

“It’s hard to beat that location,” he said. “Right around the corner are the makings of a pretty vibrant bar and restaurant scene, so we definitely wanted to be in that area.”

It also helps, he said, that the building was basically a shell due to the fire that ended Hurt’s Cleaners seven years ago. That afforded the group much input into the design of the new business from the group up, both from a functionality point as well as the aesthetics.

“Every brewery we have ever talked to said you cannot have enough floor drains,” said Mathis, “because the process itself just produces a lot of water.”

As part of the rebuild process of the building the concrete floor will be ripped out and replaced, which means plenty of room for floor drains built to suit the new business. They also plan to use old signage found during the cleanup process and photos from Hurt’s Cleaners to decorate their new business as a way to pay homage to the company the walls used to host.

“I think the long-term goal is to create a catalyst for a changing Dalton, a more vibrant Dalton, a more community focused place where people can come and have a social hangout. We hope to contribute to that,” said Brown. “As far as a business, we do hope to grow and expand.”

Ultimately, it will all depend on the support from the community, said Mathis.

“We want Dalton Brewing Co. to be the hometown brewery that makes everyone proud to pull up a bar stool and share a pint with a friend,” said Michaels via email. “The community of Dalton is important to all of us and it has been our inspiration. It is our hope to now give back to that community by offering an environment that supports social interaction and, hopefully, becomes a catalyst for a stronger Dalton.”