New Ole bar

Chris Kahl is the owner and manager of the newly opened Ole Bridge Pub, Reno’s newest excuse to hang by the river and drink beer. It’s located next to the Truckee River by the Palladio at 50 N. Sierra St.

Describe the pub for us.

It’s an English-Irish style pub, like an Old World style, I guess. We specialize in specialty beers. We have eight draughts that are constantly changing, and we have about 70 bottled beers. We’re trying to do big-beer style: Our bottles are all like 22 ounces instead of 12 ounces. They’re all like 22 ounces and up. We do have Bud Light, Budweiser and Coors Light, but most of our beers are kind of hard to get—a lot of European beers and stuff like that. We’re showing rugby and soccer games all the time. We have the European Setanta [sports broadcasts]. And we built the whole bar ourselves, myself and my two partners. We did all the woodwork. We’re building a shuffleboard now from scratch; we’re almost done. It’s a 22-foot long shuffleboard, regulation-sized. We have our own private patio that’s actually elevated above the river—that’s all private so people can take their drinks out on the patio. We got on the wine walk, had our first wine walk Saturday. We’ll probably be on the Santa Pub Crawl. We have a charity deal on the 30th called Halloween Hollow from 4 to 9 to support the Children’s Cabinet. We’re going to have candy and pass it out; I think a lot of businesses downtown are participating in it.

What’s the space like?

It’s a smaller space. We have lots of dark wood, five 50-inch HD plasma TVs. Do you want to know about happy hours? We’re doing a cool happy hour from 5-7: Half- priced pitchers of our specialty drafts and half priced bottles of wine Monday through Friday from 5 to 7. We have a super well—like a super-premium well—we have awesome well boozes, like Jack Daniels is in our well and stuff like that.

Are you trying to attract certain crowd?

Not particularly. It’s like a pub-style atmosphere. Just people that want to hang out and have really good beer and watch sporting events that might be hard to get, like those soccer and rugby games. Basically anyone who wants to come hang out on the river.

Is there anybody Irish or English at the bar?

Heritage-wise, yes. Myself and one of my partners have Irish backgrounds. I think I actually have some English, too. But we’re from here. We’re just trying to do that kind of style.

Can you give us an example of what’s on tap now?

We have Westford Irish Ale, Hop Trip from Deschutes, Magners Irish Cider, a German hefeweizen called Kapuziner. We have Rogue Brewery’s hazelnut brown, a Coniston Brewing Company beer called Bluebird Bitter. We have Harp and Guinness on draught. A couple of cool beers from Norway; one’s called Morke Pumpernickel porter. We have another Norway beer called Mikkeller called Beer Geek Breakfast”—it’s a stout brewed with coffee. We have beers from Canada, lots of beers that are Belgium style.

What made you want to open a bar?

Actually, my best friend [Mike Connolly] has been in the bar business for awhile, and he asked me if I’d like to get involved with him. He’s opened three other bars in town. It’s an opportunity that popped up for me, and I was excited about doing something locally. He’s part owner of the [Sierra] Tap House, Legends down by Meadowood Mall, and he helped start Beck’s Brewhouse in Northwest Reno. He has his own clothing company now called Conn Artist clothing.

Do you serve any food?

No food.

What’s your favorite drink?

My favorite beer now is the Hop Trip from Deschutes. It’s awesome.