"The meats. The Old Sage is not barbecue and it’s not a charcuterie bar. It is an assemblage of meats, each one getting a different smoking treatment.
The malts. Here the term applies to both whiskey and beer. Service director Anne Magoon and budget director/whiskey maven Angela Kimber researched the hell out of both and came up with a beer list (bottles plus 12 taps and a 13th nitro) full of deep, sour, smoky, blowout flavors. (“It makes you want the food Magoon intoned over a La Folie sour brown ale from New Belgium’s Lips of Faith line). As for the whiskey side of things, an entire wall is dedicated to single malts, and the bottle count will keep growing long after doors open.
A familiar face behind the bar. Charles Veitch, whom my esteemed predecessor termed “more gentlemanly history professor than blustery bartender,” will be a fixture at the Old Sage.
Tons of tiny touches. The cutting boards behind the bar are made of walnut, the fruit bowls and water pitchers are glistening copper. Magoon says the staff training included some nervous moments when everyone eyed the artful Akiko’s Pottery tableware and the unforgiving concrete floors. The guys even got some custom aprons, made of a waxed canvas, with copper grommets and leather ties. Plus, you just hose ‘em down at the end of each shift and give them a regular waxing.
Hello, there’s a spray-paint portrait of Arthur Denny. Sue me—I’m a sucker for founding fathers of the local and national varieties. This one, overlooking the lounge, is by local muralist Joey Nix, and Denny’s visage is done entirely with aerosol paint. There’s also a mural of a train. Because, why not?"
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