Fibonacci Brewing adding wine, more property

Three months after its opening, Fibonacci Brewing Company is ready to start selling wine – and to add another acre to its Mount Healthy property.

Wine has been part of the plan all along, but the brewery just received state and federal approval for its wine labels. Betty Bollas, who owns the business with her husband, Bob, said they're buying bulk wine from The Winery at Versailles in Versailles, Ohio.

"We knew we were never going to make (wine) from grapes; we're just too small of an operation," she said.

They'd originally planned to make wine from grape juice, but with wineries harvesting their grapes now, the timing wasn't right, she said. And they'd have to find room to store the juice, another challenge for such a small brewery.

Instead, they've purchased three very dry wines from The Winery at Versailles and are sweetening each themselves: A sweet vidal blanc, which they'll call Epsilon Vitis; a pinot grigio, Phi Vitis; and a chambourcin (made with a French-American red grape), Rho Vitis. They'll be available on tap at Fibonacci, 1445 Compton Road, starting this week. (And as of last week, the brewery has added Thursday hours from 5-10 p.m. It's open those same times on Friday and from noon-10 p.m. Saturday.) Wine will also be sold by the bottle.

The wines' names all have scientific or mathematical significance, in keeping with the brewery's namesake, the Fibonacci Sequence.

And Betty Bollas likes the symmetry of the two producers' locations: Fibonacci Brewing and The Winery at Versailles are about the same distance from 127 (Hamilton Avenue), just under 75 miles apart.

Adding more land

Meanwhile, the couple is under contract for the one-acre piece of land that's next to the brewery's half acre on Compton Road. They hope to close on it sometime this month.

Mature trees and several buildings – a house that dates to 1900, plus a barn and outhouse – are part of the property. The Bollas' first order of business will be adding a beer garden, which they plan to do next year. And Betty will move her urban farm, which currently takes up the couple's entire back yard, to the back of the property and expand it. She hopes to grow herbs and other food that Bob can use in brewing – strawberries for his strawberry cream ale, and perhaps pumpkins or squash. They do grow some hops, so he might use those brew a special wet-hop beer at some point. She plans to have a few chickens and maybe eventually other farm animals, too.

And Betty is looking forward to educating visitors about growing food.

"I see it as being another attraction for people," she said of the urban farm, noting that she might be able to sell produce to customers, and the plants and animals will offer a diversion for children who visit the brewery.

Plus, the plants fit perfectly with the Fibonacci theme.

"The majority if not all plants grow in the Fibonacci sequence," Betty Bollas said. "It's the petals on a daisy; it's an artichoke ... it's the way they branch out or where the leaves are on their branches. Hops are another perfect example."

As for the buildings on the property, the couple hopes that the barn can be repaired for use with Betty's farm. She thinks the house, which is about 1,500 square feet, will be salvageable, but said it needs "a lot of work." She said they have several ideas about how it could be used, possibly as a space for another, complementary business, such as a restaurant. But that would likely be five years down the road, if it happens at all.

Overall, she's thrilled that her dream of having an urban farm next to her husband's brewery is coming to fruition -- something she wasn't sure would ever be possible, especially in a city the size of Mount Healthy, at one and a half square miles.

"An acre is a lot to be able to get in one and a half square miles," she said.