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, 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 collective 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 fragments 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 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 railroad 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,” Ashley explains, walking the team through the plans and protocol.
“So many of the paranormal shows are sensationalized and completely disrespectful. 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 entertainment, 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 that have been 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 investigate what's going bump in the night. We tagged along with the team of local experts for an overnight investigation to parcel 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 building’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 experience, is, as I believe, to be someone meticulously 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 backrooms 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 honed 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 technology 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 chronically texting.
These “conversations” between the paranormal 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 projection 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, was in the building. I feel he was climbing around, being a kid, being in places he shouldn’t be, just endlessly playing, like a never-ending game of hide-and-seek,” Dagerman said, noting that the dead bells and music box – items that would draw a child’s attention – seemed to chime most when the team was attempting to speak to Harry and Josephine.
Later, Mednansky and Dagerman peeled off to the dining area. While they were sitting near the larger fermentation tanks, Mednansky says she felt an unexplainable anticipation for something small to run by. She mentioned the feeling to one of the other investigators, who also thought they were seeing a shadow in the back of the dining area. Later, one of the Four Peaks staff members mentioned that there is a strong belief that a ghost cat roams the building.
“I’m a big animal person, so I feel like I know when one of my dogs or cats is about to walk into a room, so maybe it was that intuition going off,” Mednansky said.
"Anthony"
By far, the most infamous spirit to call Four Peaks Brewery home is an entity the staff named “Anthony.” The employees say that he seems to respond to that name, which is important because he is very territorial, and so they like to communicate when they have to intrude by addressing him directly and explaining their intentions.His space is an old storage room off the main brewing and keg rooms. Anthony has been known to get physical with intruders. He likes to rush employees in the darkness, who then claim to feel a cold wind and a very heavy, almost physical presence.
Ashley says she experienced this firsthand when she stepped to the threshold of Anthony’s room.
“I was using the dowsing rods, near the entrance to Anthony’s room door, and I felt a cold gust of wind at my waist and then two hands on my thighs. I tried to move and couldn’t. Justin had to move me – this had never happened on any investigation we have been on,” she recalls.
After a beat, the team regrouped, with Economos leading a conversation with Anthony after respectfully asking for consent to enter his space.
Economos attempted to engage with Anthony, asking questions about his life, his death and his timeline. The EVP kept returning to the number 33, and when asked who was president when he passed, the device seemed to piece together the word “Roosevelt."
At one point, when Anthony was asked about his dating life, the EVP elicited a deep, guttural chuckle. Despite his gruff exterior, Anthony seemed to enjoy the banter.
“Anthony’s presence is undeniable,” Economos asserts.
“You can feel that it’s his space — almost like you’re stepping into his domain. What stood out to me most was that he didn’t just feel heavy or intimidating; there was also a playful side to him. He seemed to enjoy the interaction, almost like he liked telling his story and joking around with us,” she said.
With the ice broken between the team and Anthony, other investigators stopped by to respectfully engage. The consensus was that, while terrifying at first, he gives off grumpy old man vibes. He is not necessarily a bad guy, just someone — or something — wanting respect.
“If I were here for an eternity, and people were always coming into my space, demanding to interact with me, and asking me the same questions over and over again, I would be grumpy too!” Mednansky admits.
The Estes Method
In the final hours of the investigation, the team decided to conduct what they referred to as an Estes Method in the upper floor of the brewery. The Estes Method takes the EVP to another level by using a sensory-deprived (blindfolded and headphone-wearing) investigator to channel the voices of the dead. While other investigators ask the spirits questions, the “transmitter” person blocks out all senses except the sounds of the EVP spirit box, which are connected to their headphones. The transmitter person then speaks the words they hear, while the other investigators ask questions of the dead. This approach allegedly cuts down on distractions or inadvertent bias.Mednansky volunteers to go first. A motion sensor flickers on the stairs, where, earlier, Dagerman and Justin reported seeing a crouching shadow person on the landing. The others ask questions and small requests, politely suggesting that the spirits ring the bells or give some information about their experiences.
The ghosts, if they are such things, seem to be excited and eager to share, and Mednansky has trouble parceling out the different voices and phrases, almost as if they are talking over each other. "Hi," they say through her. The music boxes ratchet to life, plinking classical music on metal teeth and pins. She asks if they need help moving on, but it seems, they like it here; they want to try something, want to play, and they remember when they became what they are now. The phrases come from Mednansky’s voice but are words she is repeating from the Spirit Box.
“I like you,” Mednansky says.
The ghost texting app reveals a nickname for the Four Peaks employee who is sitting with us, a name that no one at the table, save him, would recognize. Then, he bolts upright. Something has poked the back of his head while he was sitting with his eyes closed. He explains the touch, using two fingers on the back of the skull and pushing lightly, the way a child might if they were playing duck-duck-goose.
This seems like a good time to call it a night. We pack up, head down the stairs, no one eager to be the last and have to turn out the lights.
Most definitely haunted
It’s almost 4:30 a.m., and the team is debriefing in the parking lot as the night sky slides over the Tempe skyline.The team does a last ritual: telling the spirits, sternly, not to follow them home.
“You have to be kind, but firm. Do not be rude, but set a boundary,” Justin asserts.
The question lingers. Is it haunted?
For this group, it’s a resounding yes. But also, no.
Haunting isn’t quite the right word. It implies that a space is scary and carries residual pain. The word they use instead is “busy.”
The Four Peaks brewpub embodies the best of being alive: good food, good beer and good conversations. According to the ghost hunting team, it’s hard not to imagine that spirits aren’t still drawn to the same things, that energy of aliveness, and as such, the brewery seems to attract spirits. Some come, kick around, then leave, but others, like Victor and Anthony, seem to stay.
“The building isn’t haunted,” Ashley concluded. “The whole grounds are.”
At the end of the day, spirits or not, the team reiterates that it’s about people. When it comes to ghosts, we are the tourists – and it's best to lead with respect when encountering them.
“Spirits were people once, so why treat them any differently than the people in front of you? They were once someone’s relative, friend, coworker. It’s safe to assume that doesn’t change. Just because you cannot physically touch them, doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings or give an investigator the right to be aggressive,” Dagerman insists.
The midnight sky starts to lighten as the investigators pack up and head to their cars. It’s only then, outside the pitch-black recesses of the brewery and in the coming light, the Get Ghosted slogan is visible on the back of their shirts. It reads: "Future Ghost."
