Is Wolfden America's Most Haunted Brewery?
Is Wolfden America's Most Haunted Brewery?
A spirited conversation with owner Katie Wolf
Note: This post is a little different than usual, and it’s not terribly beer-y, but it’s at the very least beer-adjacent and I thought it’d be fun.
Most of you read this via email, but this post also has audio of alleged spirit encounters that are only available outside of the email format.
We’ll return to our normal news roundup next week, but until then, for the full experience we recommend you click over to our Substack page.
“This year we went all out.” That’s how Katie Wolf, co-owner of Bloomingdale’s Wolfden Brewing Company, describes how they’ve been handling spooky season, considering the very haunted nature (assuming you believe in such things) of the 19th-century farmhouse that currently is home to their brewery and taproom.
Katie and her husband Krystov opened Wolfden in 2018 and have always been happy to share stories about the spirits that can be heard - and sometimes seen - at their space. Their building dates back to 1851, and according to the lore documented on their website, multiple people may have been buried or even died there over the decades.
As Halloween approached this year, they’ve increased the number of Ghost Tours that they host at their brewery, with all of them quickly selling out. More about these tours shortly, but you should know that the final Ghost Tour for the month is already sold out. You can still attend their Black & White Howl-O-Ween Party on Thursday, though!
I wanted to know more about what it’s like running a haunted brewery, so Katie and I chatted recently about her spooky experiences. If you’re inspired to visit Wolfden and hunt for ghosts, they do have other Ghost Tours throughout the year, so keep an eye on their Events page on Facebook for more.
In the meantime, go drink their beer and see what happens. (See the video below for evidence that anything could happen at any time.)
For now, here’s the story behind the most haunted brewery in Chicagoland, where, thanks to spirits named Jack, Brian and maybe Rupert … you never drink alone…
GDB: What were you looking for when you found this location? And what made you say, “Yeah, we want to open a brewery here.”
Katie Wolf: My husband and I were looking for a place that we could make our own. We really wanted something very different from everything else that we were seeing pop up in the burbs. You know, everything was really industrial and kind of cold feeling, and we really wanted it to feel more like Cheers. Like a warm hangout.
We took a lot of inspiration from the Leinie’s Lodge, because that was our first brewery [visit], and it was such a wonderful experience that we had together. We just loved it so much. That's kind of what brought us into this industry. And so when we found this building, at first, we were like, “This is crazy. We can never do this. There's so much renovation needed in the building.”
But the building was from 1851, and personally, my father and all my uncles were carpenters, steel workers; they all were in construction and development and I kind of have that in my blood. So when I showed my dad, he got super excited about it. He's like, “We can do this.” So it was the first family project that I got to do with my uncles and my dad and my husband, and it was just such a cool experience. They really made it happen for us, because we wouldn't have been able to without them.
But I also grew up really loving antiques. We always had antiques in our house; it was always beautiful and I always loved them. So when I saw this place, I was just like, “Oh my god, I could put my aesthetic in this so easily.” So it just worked out. And the city really wanted us there. They really wanted a brewery, so they were super supportive. We tried a couple other villages around the area and they did not support us, so we definitely were really happy to be here.
GDB: So is the original 1851 farmhouse still a main part of the structure? I assume it's been added on to over the years.
KW: The original structure is all still there. We we tried to keep it as original as we could. I really love renovating things and keeping that soul to it. I didn't want to knock down everything. [The previous owners] never registered [the building] as historic, because they thought whoever was going to buy it was going to knock it down. And when we came through, they were even more excited to hear that we didn't want to knock it down. We wanted to try to keep it original as possible.
So when you walk in, you can see the ceiling is all original. You can just tell it's really, really old. I left the ceiling exposed, and the cellar is original, and you can see the stone walls that were built there in 1851. Everything's reinforced now with cement, and obviously we reinforced all the wood in the building. And because it's all original wood, we had to sprinkler the shit out of it. There are sprinklers everywhere in that building. It’s never gonna burn down.
GDB: And I understand that you’ve taken a few scars away from from this particular haunting as well, according to the story on your website?
KW: Correct. When we were excavating the backyard, we found what looked like some sort of old bullet or something, but it was made out of clay. So I did some research, and I figured out that it's a soldier's marble. They're actually pretty well known; if you look it up, you can see they look the exact same as what I found. It's like a clay ball, I think it's three quarters of an inch or something.
So I took it home with me, so I could build this shadow box to document the history of the building and the things we found in it. And right away, all this weird stuff started happening to me. I ended up almost dying in a Menards. I had 12 paint cans, like a big box of full paint cans fall from 20 feet above me.
Within one week, I sliced my Achilles tendon on one of the wires that they were using to build the fence around the building. There was just so much weird stuff. So I randomly had a friend of mine who - I didn't know this at the time, [but she] was a medium. She texted me and said, “I know this is really weird, but I have a spirit telling me that you need to bring back whatever marble that you took away.” And she didn't know about it.
So for me, that solidified it. Like, there's no other explanation for that. I don't know. It was crazy to me that that happened, and instantly I was just like, “Okay, well, this is very real.” And since then, we've had people experience scary things, but nothing too crazy.
[Ed. note: She did put the marble back.]
GDB: I know it’s available on your site, but if you don’t mind, please just give me the Cliffs Notes of what you understand The Haunting of this property to be.
KW: We are pretty sure we have one main spirit whose name is Jack. We think he was a soldier because of the marble, and when he's [appeared] to people at our business he's portrayed himself as a very tall, thin, dark, shadow figure. And many people have seen him.
He comes out when we've asked for him to interact with us; he's actually come out during the Ghost Adventures and spoke through some of our equipment. And then things just happen when we start talking about him around the tap room. So we always feel like he's the most present.
GDB: And when you say, ‘speak through your equipment’ what does that mean? Like a voice coming from the brewhouse or something?
KW: We have a piece of equipment called a spirit box, and it basically flips through radio frequencies, like a hundred a second. So you just hear the static of the frequencies flipping, and if you hear something speak through it, it's basically [the box] giving the spirit enough energy to be able to communicate. That's the theory.
So we use that and we definitely get responses. The first time I tried to talk to him, and I said, “Is your name Jack?” He said, “I'm Jack.” And we have that recorded. Two weeks ago, we had a ghost hunt and we have a very clear sound clip of a lady asking him what his name is. And he said, “Rupert.”
It's so crazy because it's so clear - and we've never had a Rupert. We don't know about Rupert, but we have a portal, we've been told, where spirits can come in and out upstairs. It used to be our party room, but now it's our “Portal Room,” and because of that, I think we have a pretty good amount of spirits that come through all the time.
That's also been kind of verified, because we have mediums come in and say they've never seen this many spirits in one place. And sometimes they literally want to leave because they can hear everyone talking, and I've had multiple people say this to me. I know it sounds crazy, but when you hear it from a couple different people and they don't know each other … that’s very hard to debunk. I mean, it's pretty crazy. They've said that they've seen people from the 1800s walking through the tap room wearing, like, a bustle skirt. It's crazy.
We think we have a younger spirit named Brian that likes to joke around with people. We've been told he's too young to drink, so he just kind of fucks with everyone at the bar because he's jealous. We just have so many different experiences, and the spirit box really helps them talk to us.
GDB: And when you were looking at this place originally, was the the haunted nature of it disclosed? Or was that something that you discovered later?
KW: So when we first did our walk through with the village, we went into the cellar and they joked around that, “This is where the ghosts live.” And you know, we all laughed, had a good chuckle. And pretty much right after that was when we kind of started experiencing things.
I've never … I've never experienced anything [supernatural] before this. So I can't say I was a believer or a non-believer. I was just open to it. So I was excited about it, and I've been excited since day one, I still love it. I think it's the coolest thing ever. Nothing really scared me ever. I just want to experience as much as I can.
GDB: You’ve mentioned the portal room, but what do you use the oldest parts of the of the house for? Is that where the tap room is, is that where the brew house is?
KW: The cellar. The cellar is the oldest part, and the only way to see it is to go on the ghost tour, because it's storage. It's where we keep, you know, all our dry stock, and there’s three creepy little rooms. One of the rooms, we were told, may have been used for the Underground Railroad, because it's very, very small. There's a lot of cool history down there.
We also feel like we may have Native American spirits, because the post office in Bloomingdale [is on] a Native American burial ground, per the public library. So we tend to think that we have some Native American spirits, and we've been told that we have one in the cellar that really doesn't like when people come down. So a lot of people get very uncomfortable in the cellar.
GDB: I once lived in a house in downtown Naperville that was built in the 1870s or so, so I can absolutely picture the type of cellar you have. Weirdly, I was told the same thing about that house - we had a semi-enclosed space in the basement that was also “once used on the Underground Railroad.” And I had some spooky things happen to me there as well. I’m as skeptical if not moreso than the next guy, but as you said - when these similar events happen to people who have no relation, or have no idea that something might be going on … well, I get why someone would choose to lean into that feeling.
KW: I mean, it's a lot based on feelings. When I have my ghost hunts, you know, I always ask, who's sensitive? And it's crazy, because the people who are sensitive, they get legitimately the most response on out of anyone when we do our ghost hunts. We'll literally just give them the equipment, and they will get so much more response than anyone else. So I've seen everything with my own eyes. You know, I'm definitely a believer at this point. Like, there's no doubt in my mind. It's too real.
It's crazy too, because sometimes we'll go for a couple months and we won't feel anything, we won't hear anything. And we'll have a ghost hunt, and nothing will happen, which is terrible, because it always just feels so disappointing, even though people have such a fun time. And we always say, you know, if nothing happens, that's just the way it is. We’re not gonna fake anything.
But then the last couple times we've done it, oh my gosh, there’s been so much more response than last year. I guess sometimes there's more spirits in the building than others. We also sage a lot. So sometimes we may have saged them out.
GDB: Tell me more about your ghost tours. I don't remember seeing them in past years - obviously you’re busy in October but are these available year round?
KW: Yes. We usually do them in the winter months when we're slower. And it depends on staffing, it depends where I'm at in life, if I can handle doing, you know, these two hour tours. We used to do them at 11pm till 1am, after we closed, but then I decided, “I'm too old for this.” So now we do them a little bit earlier, but we have to wait until the sun goes down.
And it's kind of just evolved. In the beginning, we didn't have as much equipment, now we have more equipment. Also, if my staff is not into it, I can't throw these events. The staff I have right now, they've all had experiences, and they're like, '“Fuck yeah, we'll do this.”
GDB: Is that a question that you're allowed to ask at a job interview? , If you're you're looking for help, can you ask, “How open are you to weird, spooky stuff?”
KW: I literally ask that at every single interview. “Are you okay with spirits?” I'm not kidding. I do. It's a serious question every time, because if somebody is really freaked out, they're not going to make it. Because I've had grown men run out the door at night when they're closing. So my staff right now is very brave. They're awesome.
GDB: Without giving away too much, give me a sense of what you do at these Ghost Adventure events.
KW: We do tours around the building, and we stop in different locations where we get more responses. And we stay at each location for 10 to 15 minutes, and we ghost hunt. We see if we can get the spirits with, at this point we have six or seven pieces of equipment that we use.
We break off, we go into the yard, because we've been told that we have many buried bodies in our backyard. [laughs] So we ghost hunt in the backyard too. We go all over the building.
We've actually been told the whole downtown area is very, very haunted. The building right next to us was the coach house for our building in 1851 and it's vacant right now, but it's also really spooky. You can tell that the area is very old.
GDB: Final question, just to bring it back to beer: Has this venue affected the the choices that you make in the beers that you produce, or the names of any of your beers? It's kind of got to infuse itself into some stuff, I imagine.
KW: Oh yeah, it's a fun theme to play on, but honestly, I'm very cautious about it, because in the beginning I really didn't want anyone to think we were faking it. I didn't want to make it a joke. People have said, “Oh, why don't you make a Jack's Beer,” and, well, we could, but I want people to take it seriously, because it really is. It's not a joke. It's fun, but it's not a joke.
So with the beer, I'm trying to think … we don't really do a lot with the ghosts and our beer. Most of the stuff we do [with] our beer is Wolf themed, or woods themed, so, maybe we might do one eventually, but … we don't want to provoke [the spirits] too much.
You can, and should, visit Wolfden Brewing at all times of year (not just the spooky ones) at 112 W. Lake Street in Bloomingdale, IL. Tell them Rupert sent you.