22 Oct 2nd-Oct 8th, 2025 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | of the property in 1909 while climbing a power line. These days, he’s said to play hide-and-seek with guests and dart behind kegs. Another spirit, known by Four Peaks employees only as “Anthony,” has claimed a maintenance room in the far recesses of the building as his domain and does not like unwelcome guests in his space. The grounds are also littered with stories of grisly rail- road and auto accidents that occurred within earshot of the building, and there is speculation that the victims have stuck around. In 2023, the Four Peaks building gained notoriety after being featured on Zak Bagans’ bro-ghostbusters series “Ghost Adventures.” While that episode featured lots of infrared footage of the team yelling at apparitions, the group selected for this evening’s exploration was decidedly more low-key. “The big thing for our team is respect. We will always try our very best to be respectful while also being thorough enough to make sure we got answers to our questions,” Justin explains, walking the team through the plans and protocol. “So many of the paranormal shows are sensationalized and completely disre- spectful. I think it gives many viewers the wrong idea of what an investigation honestly looks like. The entities we’re trying to engage with don’t exist for our entertain- ment, so it seems like good sense to be generally kind and considerate,” Mednansky asserts. Under the watchful supervision of a Four Peaks employee who graciously agreed to chaperone us for the evening, we were invited to explore the space on our own terms and see what we found. The investigation was a research mission. During the fall, Four Peaks hosts haunted brewery tours, inviting guests behind the scenes to enjoy spooky season at the brewpub. The tours kick off on Sept. 21, and attendees have two options for exploring the spooky space. The Haunted Brewery Tour, which recounts many of the chilling tales collected in the building’s 130-year history, runs every Sunday through Wednesday until Oct. 29. The tour includes a growler of Pumpkin Porter and a special-edition t-shirt, with tickets available online starting at $40. For those wanting an even more intimate occult experience, the brewery is also hosting a “Drafts with the Dead” event for $45, running every Friday until Oct. 24. The private tasting features flights and small bites, which then turn to talk and tours of the terrible tales that surround the brewery. Prior to the season’s tours, the Four Peaks team wanted to put their ghostly lore to the test. So this summer, the brewers invited the ghost hunting team to investi- gate what’s going bump in the night. We tagged along with the team of local experts for an overnight investigation to find out just what makes the local brewery so damn spooky. Into the darkness Almost immediately, the team encountered something strange. “In that first room, there was a heavy presence, a distinct energy that stood out when we walked in,” Economos says. According to Four Peaks lore, the room is occupied by the watchful spirit of Victor Vogel, a former superintendent of the build- ing’s creamery days who had a near-death experience in the room. After falling into an empty vat, Vogel found himself lying inches from a whirring blade spinning above him. He called out for help for hours before being found. Now, in his spirit state, he seems to be stuck in a “residual haunting,” the team explains, looping back to his worksite to perpetually warn others. Several team members admitted to feeling uneasy when stepping into the room, as if someone was watching them every time they walked by. Vogel has appeared to several employees, and even chatted up the owner, who assumed he was simply an old timer who was coming back to visit his former place of work. The only problem was, Vogel died in 1972, and the conversation took place in 1997. “Victor Vogel, given his near-death expe- rience, is, as I believe, to be someone metic- ulously overlooking the building for safety concerns,” Dagerman explains. With several new guests entering his beloved workspace this evening, it would only be natural for Vogel to pop in and make sure things were all above board. Children, chats and cats The back rooms of Four Peaks are dark, which is great if you are a shadow person, one type of entity frequently reported there. To the uninitiated, a shadow person is pretty much what you would expect it to be — a shadowy figure lurking on the periphery of your vision, something felt more than seen. Off the keg room is the barrel room, a windowless space with giant wooden casks of delicious Four Peaks specialty beers. At night, it is lit only by eerie red emergency lights. As the team split off into smaller groups, this space gave team leader Justin some pause. He homed in on a presence. “In the barrel room, I definitely made out a shadow figure. It couldn’t have been bigger than a 7- or 8-year-old kid. It was pacing, wandering, like it was waiting to be invited into the keg room or wanting me to come in,” he explains. This was the first of several encounters the group described as distinctly “child- like.” Further back in the bottling room, where motion lights and dead bells were set up, the team conversed with some spirits that seemed playful and curious, even mischievous at times. Dagerman described seeing the names “Josephine” and “Jo” several times on an app known as a “spirit talker.” The tech- nology claims to work in a similar manner as the EVP by scanning for electromagnetic variations and repurposing them into phrases to help the living connect with the dead, through a device locked in airplane mode to limit access to the user’s data. The results are random, sometimes unsettling, words and phrases, which, if nothing else, prove that even in death, we are still chroni- cally texting. These “conversations” between the para- normal team and the spirits are disjointed, to say the least. Snippets of phrases come through the speakers of the Spirit Box or EVP, and the team attempts to clarify or respond with questions. It’s a jumbled back- and-forth, similar to attempting to have a sustained conversation over a walkie-talkie. Then, the team is stopped in their tracks. Clearly and eloquently, a girl’s voice seems to echo from the hallway. “Hello,” says someone, or something. A quick check confirms that no one from the group is in that area. To their credit, the investigators seem more excited and welcoming than unnerved by the salutation. “After doing investigations for almost 25 years, I don’t really get creeped out. Especially in this location, where the spirits of children have been reported, these entities may gravitate to adults as a sense of guiding or being close to their parents,” Ashley explains. Dagerman also described seeing a shadow figure darting around the room, nearest an old sliding barn door, as the “dead bells” rang and music boxes were triggered. The team had set up a laser grid projec- tion against the wall of the bottling room, which flickered in ways they’d not seen before. Could it have been paranormal with spirit playing with the laser grid? Or could it have been weak batteries dying that caused the strange shadows and bend of the lights? Either is a possibility, the team agrees. However, technological hiccups aside, the group felt something engaging with them in the bottling room. “I get the sense that Harry Williams, the young boy who was electrocuted, Boos and Brews Investigating the Valley’s most haunted brewery. BY ZACH ODEN O n a sweltering night in July, after the last pints were poured and the doors were locked, a team of paranormal investigators geared up to spend the night in Tempe’s most haunted brewery. On the back tables of the brewpub, the team organized their tools and started checking levels and batteries. They laid out Electronic Voice Phenomenon boxes, or EVPs, along with dowsing rods, laser grids, kinetic mapping equipment, motion sensors, music boxes and “dead bells” — silver counter bells, much like the ones found at a hotel desk, that ring with a change in electro-magnetic energy. “The dead bell senses electro-magnetic fluctuations that will trigger the bell to go off. It’s a pretty neat tool to use because it’s easy to get yes or no answers,” paranormal researcher Amanda Mednansky explains. She runs a podcast called True Creeps and is part of Rogue Investigations, a collec- tive run by Surprise residents Justin and Ashley Nunn. Also along for the ride were Nadine Economos and her team from the local ghost tour group Get Ghosted Phoenix, as well as Christina Dagerman, a supernatural research specialist. As the team sets up their gear, someone jokes that it looks like the scene in James Cameron’s “Aliens,” where the badass space marines are getting locked and loaded. A moment later, the EVP, which operates by quickly scanning radio frequencies for frag- ments of sound and parsing them together to create phrases, hisses in Justin’s hand. “It said, ‘Alien,’” he says. “They’re joking with us,” he chuckles, trekking into the darkness of the keg room to set up more equipment. The Four Peaks Brewing Co. brewpub off Eighth Street in Tempe is a notoriously haunted space, with the history of the creamery-turned-brewery lurking at every turn. The cast of ghoulish inhabitants includes Victor Vogel, a former creamery employee who seems to enjoy coming back and covering a shift or two. He’s appeared in his full white uniform to the Four Peaks team, and can apparently hold a conversation. Then there’s the young boy Harry Williams, who was electrocuted in the back >> p 24 Four Peaks Brewing Co. has an ominous silhouette as the paranormal investigation winds down in the early morning hours. (Amanda Mednansky) ▼ Food & Drink
