♪♪ [Kohlsdorf] In Clinton's downtown neighborhood, the city's past has been resurrected in a surprising way.

[Rachel Heise] We were always looking for an old church or a schoolhouse or a firehouse, anything that had fun, good, old bones that we could kind of turn into something.

And we happened to know a guy who knew a guy at the right time because when we came here, they were about to demolish this location and turn it into a parking lot, which when we walked in, we're like how in the heck are you guys going to turn this into a parking lot, it's so beautiful.

[Kohlsdorf] Great Revivalist Brewery first opened in 2020 across the river in Western Illinois.

After weathering the COVID pandemic, they were ready to expand into Iowa.

That's when the historic church caught their eye.

After about a year of renovations, the former house of worship was ready for its revival.

♪♪ [Rachel Heise] I show people pictures all the time and they're like oh, that's really cool.

And then they finally come and see it and they're like, the pictures did nothing for this place, you have to see it in person.

[Kohlsdorf] The building was originally constructed in 1898 as St. John's Episcopal Church.

Many of the original fixtures are still here, but with a new purpose.

Pieces of the pews and pipe organ were turned into tables, the alter now holds brewing equipment.

[Rachel Heise] That's the whole point in looking for a place like this.

We didn't want to come in here and turn it into the next IKEA looking place.

We wanted to utilize and bring it back to life and honor all of the history that is in this building.

[Kohlsdorf] While the building is historic, the brewery serves up a drink list and menu that are anything but old fashioned.

[Rachel Heise] We have a full soda line and then we have our tonic and then we have our energy drink.

We also make our own nitro cold brew coffee.

We have any type of beer that you would want from sours to darks to lights to reds.

If you can't come here and find something to drink, then I don't know what to tell ya honestly!

We have a full-service kitchen and we have a full-service pizza kitchen.

We have a nine-foot pizza oven that is wood fired.

♪♪ [Rachel Heise] We're just in our small little niche of the world here.

So, you're like, oh there's got to be other cool church breweries out in the world.

And it turns out there is a few, but there's not a lot.

We literally want to be a one stop shop for everything you need.

You can bring the whole family here.

You can bring your babies and you can bring your hundred-year-old grandmas because there's something for everybody whether it's food, drink, atmosphere or just the nostalgia for some of these folks to come in and just relive this that have been in this church before.

We left everything in here as is as we could as much as possible.

You never know how people are going to take to certain things, especially a church becoming a brewery.

That was a stumbling block and I think still is for some folks.

They don't like the fact that there's beer going on in the church.

But most people they are extremely thankful that we didn't let it get demolished and we were able to bring it back to life and give it a whole other purpose for hopefully another 50 years.

♪♪