Here’s another place my husband and I plan to hit up during our visit to Savannah next week. It’s hard to beat beer and ghosts! (Update: Photos from visit below).

The Place: The Moon River Brewing Company is a restaurant, bar, and brewing facility in Savannah, Georgia.

The History: Though the brewery opened its doors in 1999, the building it occupies was once the City Hotel, the first hotel in Savannah, Georgia. Built in 1821, the City Hotel hosted a number of notable guests in addition to serving as a post office and bank. The hotel closed in 1864, just before General Sherman invaded the city, and went on to become a lumber and coal warehouse, a general storage facility, and an office supply store before owners transformed the building into a modern-day brewery.

The Haunting: Today, the Moon River Brewing Company consists of a basement level, a restaurant on the main floor, and three vacant stories that look much the way they did when Charleston native Elazer Early built the City Hotel in 1821. Could this be why the building appears to be such a paranormal hot spot?

The brew pub certainly has no shortage of strange reports. Moon River employees have witnessed bottles flying off shelves, silverware sliding off dining room tables, and shadowy figures roaming about the building. Women in 19th-century clothing reportedly walk up and down stairwells, while the ghost of a child named Toby is said to steal balls from the basement pool table. One customer, a police officer, insists he spotted the ghost of a Union soldier. The general manager felt an unseen entity push past him in a doorway, while a female guest claims a demonic entity attacked her in the basement. Footprints appear in empty rooms, and all efforts to renovate the building have been thwarted by a hostile spirit who once pushed a foreman’s wife down a flight of stairs.

In 2009, Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures visited the Moon River Brewing Company and recorded a number of strange events, including footsteps, knocking, dragging sounds, disembodied voices, and a shadowy form thought to belong to the spirit named Toby. Ghost hunter Nick Groff was also reportedly possessed by one of the building’s spirits (above).

Have you had an experience at the Moon River Brewing Company? Tell me about it here!

Sources: “Ghost Adventures: Moon River Brewing Company,” Wikipedia,

Photos: Travel Channel

Update: Here are a few photos from our visit. While we didn’t see or hear any ghosts at the Moon River Brewing Company, my husband and I did enjoy the Apparition Ale and Slow-Vannah. Plus, the Haunted Pub Crawl tour took us to the second floor which is normally closed to visitors. See any ghosts I missed?