Tavern lore: Gilded Otter helped usher New Paltz into craft beer age

A conference center that never was

People saw a lot of potential in the 3 Main St. site during the 1990s. One proposal was to create a 48-room Victorian style hotel, with a restaurant and conference center. Developer Matt Bialecki’s plan got pretty far through the planning phase, and people were excited for the prospect of a $4.5 million project at the site of the old motel.

Village Planning Board members gave the project a unanimous approval, and people in New Paltz seemed thrilled by the idea of a “Wallkill Valley Inn.”

Then-Mayor Thomas Nyquist loved the idea of the conference center and hotel, and he saw it as a way to revitalize the hamlet.

But eventually investors pulled out and the project dried up. People were left for a loss as to what 3 Main Street would be — at least until the Gilded Otter showed up.

And then came beer

Finally, in 1996 long-time friends Harry Rhulen, Anthony Rhulen, John Borwick and Rick Rauch came up with the idea for a brewpub called The Gilded Otter. They eventually chose 3 Main Street to build their restaurant and brewery.

Originally from Monticello, the friends shared a long-lasting bond. Borwick was a cop from Sullivan County, Harry Rhulen had a background in insurance, Anthony Rhulen a background in film and Rauch had a background in restaurants.

Rauch had previously owned a sports bar in Colorado, and two night clubs here in New York in Monticello. He started as Gilded Otter’s general manager, but he’s now a co-owner and managing partner.

“We were guys that grew up together, went to high school together and lived a half a block from each other,” Rauch remembered.

They’d chosen the name “Gilded Otter” because that is essentially New Paltz’s Mayflower. New Paltz’s Huguenot founders sailed from Europe to America in a ship called the Gilded Otter.

Almost as soon as construction began, it was clear that the site was still rich with history. Old glass bottles discarded by long-forgotten railway passengers were found on the site. They even dug up an old steel swimming pool — presumably from the lot’s past as a motel.

“We found a lot of things buried in the dirt and the ground here,” he said.

Gilded Otter’s founders set up shop during the first wave of American craft brewing in the 1990s.

“At the time, craft brewing was making its first appearance on the market in the United States. It was a new thing. Not many people had heard of it,” Rauch said. “There was an emergence of it coming about. It was something different, and we decided to give it a try.”

Early on, Gilded Otter won some recognition for its beers. In 2000, they entered their Stone House Imperial Stout at the Great American Beer Festival. It was a big win for them early on.

Rauch told the Times Herald-Record in 2000 that their win surprised them. “We are a flea on the back of the beer industry and it was quite a shock to hear that we won a medal,” he told the daily back then.

After its initial popularity peak the 1990s, craft brewing market shrank a little in the early 2000s. But it’s roared back onto the scene in the last five years, in part, because of the Millennial generation’s love of good beer. Gilded Otter survived all of that change.

“Not many people even knew what the phrase ‘craft beer brewing’ even meant,” he explained. “It was different trying to convince people and show people that there were other things besides yellow Budweiser.”

In the 17 years since they started the business, Gilded Otter’s sales have grown. Its owners see it as a well-oiled machine at this point.

“We are a restaurant first and foremost,” the co-owner said. “Business has grown tremendously.” They had about $3 million in sales last year — at least 80 percent of that came from food, the rest from the beer.

Rauch said their chef is constantly experimenting with ideas, dropping off low-selling menu items and replacing them with new dishes. They’re trying to please customers.

Gilded Otter’s owners don’t see their establishment as a bar. They see it as a restaurant and brewpub. That distinction is important, according to Rauch.

“Snug’s is a bar,” he said.

Like Keegan Ales in Kingston, it’s not a traditional bar. Even so, we’ve included Gilded Otter in our Tavern Lore series because of its importance to beer and craft brewing in our area.

Doubtlessly, the Otter has helped expand horizons for people in New Paltz, giving people an alternative to stuff made by the Big Four brewers — Anheuser-Busch InBev, SABMiller, Heineken and Carlsberg.

To learn more about what’s going on at the Gilded Otter, head to https://www.gildedotter.com/ or search for them on Facebook or Twitter.

The Gilded Otter is the final installment in a six-part series featuring the history of local taverns. Check out the entire series by visiting newpaltzx.com.