The Pandemonium Witches: Murders, Mystery, and Mayhem · TPW3MPodcast

S1.E108 - P is for Pennsylvania: Spirits and Shadows of the Keystone State

·2 hr 24 min·10 clips
The episode does not open politely. The hosts drift in through loose chatter about the light at the boyfriend's place, a cat on biscuit duty, and the kind of hydration setup that becomes a whole bit. Butterfly talk takes over next. They riff on butterfly pee, corpse butterflies, blood drinking, and Vivianite, keeping the tone half joke and half gleeful derailment until the story finally points toward Pennsylvania. Then the brewery shows up. Boobs Brewery and Central Hotel in Mount Joy becomes the main stop, and the hosts keep circling its architecture, cellar spaces, and old-world feel like they can barely believe a place this eerie also began as a working brewery. Alois Boob gets his due. They explain that the German immigrant founded the brewery in 1876 and built a brewery hotel with a subterranean lagering cellar, called catacombs, 42 to 43 feet underground that once held up to 700 barrels of beer. The hotel had a first. Built between 1880 and 1884, the Central Hotel also had Mount Joy's first flushing toilet, which the hosts treat as both history and a clean punch line. The shutdown came later. World War I and Prohibition closed the brewery, the complex was remodeled decades later into a museum, hotel, and restaurants, and brewing eventually returned in 2001 after Pennsylvania liquor laws changed. That history matters. The episode leans on it to keep the hauntings tied to a real place rather than a decorative ghost story. The main apparition is a woman. She is usually described as a young woman in a long gown, believed to be Alois Boob's granddaughter, and the hosts place her near the hallway beside a portrait of Alois. The conversation stays unruly. Pronunciation checks, corrections, side comments, and little admissions of confusion keep breaking in, but they also make the room feel lived-in. The back half eases out with schedule talk. The hosts mention the last few episodes of the month, a three-month hiatus, a February return, and their ongoing promise to stay feral as they close the show.

As heard by us

A haunted brewery story that feels local, unruly, and firmly rooted in place.

Boob's Brewery and Central Hotel in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, gives the episode its spine: a historic brewery, a subterranean lagering cellar, a haunted hallway, and a young woman in a long gown said to be Alois Boob's granddaughter.

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Why you'd press play

You want a haunted Pennsylvania brewery-hotel story with messy banter and a very lived-in room tone.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
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