ALE on Oak owner Patrick Winters

 The owners of Oak, a wine bar in the Riverbend, have recently opened an expansion project next door: a gastropub called Ale.  Featuring thirty taps and sixty bottles and cans – everything from Budweiser to Crispin to Sapporo – this wide collection of brews is sure to satisfy patrons’ tastes.  The menu features creative, innovative reinterpretations of classic gourmet dishes and the pub will serve weekend brunches as well.

PW: We wanted to give customers and regulars in the Uptown/Riverbend area another place to enjoy good beer. We have an extensive wine list over at Oak Wine bar, but only 16 beers. We thought it would be a good idea to have a few places on the block where you can get a great variety of wine and beer.

PW: Guests can float freely between both bars. However, customers do need to open separate tabs at both locations since we are two different bars. They can take wine and beer back and forth with no problem.

PW: We wanted to choose beers that people wanted to drink. Whether it is local, craft, foreign or domestic we just wanted to serve beer that the customers want. We are focusing on local breweries right now. For the liquors, we focused on bourbons and scotches. Oak has a wide variety of vodkas, so we wanted to again give customers a wide variety of quality liquors between both bars. As for the cocktails, we have four specialty cocktails on our chalkboard that we kept simple and refreshing. They will change depending on the weather.

WYAT: Now that the gastropub is open, what’s on the horizon for Ale and Oak?  

PW: What's on the horizon for both bars is to keep our neighbors and customers happy. We created a place where you can enjoy a nice bottle of wine and listen to live music at Oak, and a place where you can try the latest craft beer or a good whiskey and watch the Saints game. We hope we created something for New Orleans that it did not currently have and we are very excited about it.