MONTREAL — Beer lovers, the rumours are true.

Beau’s, a much-loved craft brewery from a tiny town on the other side of the Quebec-Ontario border, has for so long been unavailable to Quebec beer connoisseurs because of the complexity of interprovincial liquor laws. But that’s all about to change.

Come February, the family-owned-and-operated brewery in Vankleek Hill, Ont., will begin distributing its fine craft beer in Montreal, Gatineau and other parts of the province.

“We didn’t think it would take this long to figure out how to sell in Quebec,” said Steve Beauchesne, who co-owns the brewery with his father, Tim.

The project to bring Beau’s to Quebec had been put on the back burner a couple of years ago after two attempts using an importer failed. Quebec’s liquor laws meant that the brewery would have to sell exclusively at the SAQ, a far from ideal situation for Beauchesne.

The SAQ holds onto the product for a long time before shelving it, he said — and when they do, it’s at a high markup. “So it’s stale, expensive and only at the SAQ,” he said.

The priority became the Ontario market, which was guzzling down Beau’s quicker than the brewery could produce it. Beautiful and distinct labelling designs on unique long-neck bottles had piqued Ontarians’ curiosity about the beer, and a variety of seasonal offerings and one-offs intrigued and pleased tastebuds.

However, it wasn’t only Ontarians who had taken note of Beau’s. At the 2013 edition of Montreal’s Mondiale de la bière beer festival, Beau’s brought twice as much beer as the year before.

Still, they sold out halfway through the second day of the four-day festival.

“At that point, we knew we had to expand in Quebec,” Beauchesne said.

He discarded the notion of using an importer and buckled down, hiring a consultant friend to help the brewery’s owners do the importing themselves. It certainly wasn’t cheap — Beauchesne expects the consultant fees to ring up to about $30,000 for the Quebec project and other unrelated ones. The process involves incorporating in Quebec, brokering a deal with Recyc-Québec, building a distribution warehouse in the province and then at least six months of waiting.

For Beauchesne, independently maintaining his brand’s integrity is worth the bureaucracy.

“I just personally don’t believe any outside agency will care as much about our beer as we will,” he said.

Beau’s — formally known as Beau’s All-Natural Brewing Company — truly is a labour of love.

Beauchesne, 38, and his father, Tim, started the organic craft brewery together eight years ago, at a time when Tim’s textile business in Vankleek Hill was going bust.

“The whole textile industry was disappearing. My dad saw the writing on the wall,” Beauchesne said.

“He came to visit me in Toronto, where I was living. The last of his customers was going out of business,” Beauchesne said. “So we started brainstorming with what to do with the plant, the rest of his career. He mentioned brewery, and I said to him, ‘I would quit my job and sell my house and move back home to open a brewery with you, Dad.’”

It seemed like the perfect opportunity for Beauchesne, an amateur home brewer at the time.