USA, OH: Opera House Brewing Company to open in Hillsboro in mid-2018

For more than 40 years, wood paneling covered the beautiful arch doorway at the former Hillsboro Opera House, built in the 1800s. Now, two local couples are in the process of restoring the building with a new business, Opera House Brewing Company, thejournal-news.net reported on December 7.

Tony and Jennifer Marcolini of Marcolini Inc. Construction and Jeremy and Jami Schmidt, took off the old wood paneling on Nov. 30 with the help of friends, revealing the new entryway to their business, set to open in mid-2018.

"I think our story begins about four years ago," said Tony Marcolini. "Jen and I decided we wanted to open a brewery. We started touring, researching and drinking. We've traveled just about coast to coast and toured more than 50 breweries."

Marcolini said his original thought for the brewery was the old ice plant, which is home to Marcolini Construction. However, he had the opportunity to purchase the former opera house building from Jim Simpson of Litchfield and the rest is history.

The portion of the building which will be the tap room for Opera House Brewing Company served as the longtime law office of Cullison and Vandever. It was also briefly home to The Holiday Shop, before they moved down the street to a larger space.

The Schmidts joined the project almost by happy accident.

"We just kind of lucked into it," said Jeremy Schmidt.

He was uptown helping Marcolini with some of the demolition work, under the guise of turning the building into retail or office space.

"Tony asked me what I would do with a building like this," Schmidt said. "And I told him I thought a really cool old-school saloon with high end drinks would be great."

It only took a week for the two to join efforts together into what has now become Opera House Brewing Company.

Marcolini said the tap room and bar area are set to open in mid-2018, and will showcase theri craft beers, as well as guest taps from other regional breweries. They are working closely with Recess Brewery in Edwardsville, who will initially brew the recipes for Opera House Brewing Company.

"When we open, we will have our own flagship beer," Marcolini said. "We are brewing test batches right now and working on some creative names."

Eventually, the plan is to brew beer on site at Opera House Brewing Company, but that goal is a little farther down the line.

"My love for craft beer has inspired my research," Marcolini said. "I even built my own brewing machine."

In addition to brewing great beer, the two couples will provide an unparalleled space in hopes of driving consumerism to the area that will benefit all the businesses of Hillsboro.

"We want to provide a great customer experience," Schmidt said. "People say this is a dying town, but if you pull the curtain back and look at the new record store, Black Rabbit Coffee, the Red Rooster, there's really so many amazing things going on. We want to show people this is a great bedroom community that has a lot to offer."

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