What The Spotty Dog Books & Ale is known for

This bookstore and bar occupies the C.H. Evans Firehouse, a red-brick 1889 building designed by Michael O'Connor for Engine Company No. 3, converted to retail use and opened by a descendant of the Evans family in 2005. Evans' Ale, first brewed by Cornelius H. Evans in the 1800s, is still poured at the bar beneath the firehouse's original mahogany mantle.

The Spotty Dog Books & Ale occupies the C.H. Evans firehouse at 440 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. The building was erected in 1889 as the first purpose-built home of Engine Company No. 3, a company whose roots go back to 1799 and which took the name of Cornelius H. Evans, politician and brewer, in 1868. Architect Michael O'Connor planned the structure, and the cornerstone was laid on December 3, 1889 with gifts from the community that included a mahogany mantle and a bronze chandelier as well as a brass sliding pole. The upstairs served as a social hall while the truck floor was cleared for dances. In 2004 the firehouse was converted to retail use, with period doors replacing the garage door and a bar surface cut from a reclaimed bowling alley. Kelley Drahushuk, a Hudson native and Evans descendant, opened the store in 2005 after moving her art supply business down Warren Street. Her uncle Neil Evans, Cornelius H. Evans IV, owns the building and brews Evans' Ale in Albany, which is still poured at the bar. Some 10,000 volumes fill the shelves, with an art supply room at the back and kombucha on tap beside the beer. Author events and live music draw the town in, and trivia nights fill the tables. Hudson Valley Magazine profiled Drahushuk in 2014 and the Times Union covered the store in 2022.