Crew

Nigel is a great new addition to the kitchen staff, because he’s worked with most of them at other restaurants and really helps out with team cohesion. He grew up in the area, so he knows how to leave a touch of Charleston class on every dish he prepares, and he takes orders very well. We’re happy to have him as one of our new recruits in the kitchen, and even though he’s been with us only a few short weeks, it already feels like a lifetime.

In Nigel’s free time, you can find him shaking his moneymaker at EDM festivals. He’s into that computer music that all the kids are digging these days, and he says that stouts and sours help him really hone in on his dancing skills. Whether he’s fist-pumping or flipping burgers, he’s putting his whole heart into it!

Jake Andrews has been a staple of the Charleston “pub-food” scene for longer than you realize. He’s probably cooked for you at Juanita Greenberg’s Nacho Royale, and he has probably made your Duck Club at the Tattooed Moose. He’s one of those guys who loves cooking delicious foods at the different hubs and hotspots around the Charleston Metro Area, and he fried up your Tater-Tachos and the Recovery Room last night. Little-known fact, but he his the evil genius behind the delicious-yet-short-lived food stand next to Charleston Beer Works called “Holy Pies”, which were essentially gourmet hot-pockets, handmade, hot and ready for your eating pleasure. He’s moved around some, but he’s always had the same goal in mind: “Make good food for the drinking masses, and the fame will come.”

He’s our newest edition to the kitchen staff, and we couldn’t be happier about it. He’s worked with a lot of us at different spots, and we know that we can always rely on him for producing quality grub. It’s not complicated with Jake. He likes to eat nice things, and he makes sure that you like to eat them, too. He prefers an easy-drinking beer for the summer heat, and he’s not afraid of the bigger brews in the winter-time. If you get the inkling to buy him one, ask the bartenders what he likes and they’ll set him up for success. He’s also great at Magic: The Gathering and other long-form table games, so if you’re up for it, try to bring him down with your Infinite Damage Fireball Deck. It’s not a good idea, but you’ll have a story to tell your grandkids.

Garrett Hahn is our newest addition to our taproom staff, and he’s no stranger to some great craft brews. Garrett hails from Dayton, Ohio, and after living for a time in Cincinnatti, he and his brother took a move for greener pastures to our fine city of Charleston, South Carolina. He got his start in the local beer scene at Closed For Business on King Street, but now he splits his time at work between bartending for us at our spot on Dorchester Road and working in the tasting room at Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company. If you know anything about these spots, you know that they all specialize in delicious brew.

Garrett prefers to drink traditional German lagers, dry IPAs and dry Stouts, but he’s not afraid of any style you can throw his way. Look for him behind our bar and he’s sure to help you pick out a beverage that’s right up your alley!

Sid has been a long-time employee of Sean and Joel’s other company, Charleston Rickshaw and Pedicab. He’s recently graced us with his presence to help us fill some kegs and bring in-general joy to a workplace that could always use more mirth and mayhem. He loves to act, program his own 8-bit jams, and drink beer. He’s the kind of guy that makes you love showing up to work every day, but don’t tell him we said that. We make him scrub the toilets because he’s new. Don’t let him know of our secret love and harbored admiration for him. It’ll ruin the dynamic!

Bill Pitts came to us from a catering gig in Charleston and went from canning beer to head cellarman. Bill takes fermented beer and transfers it to a bright tank, carbonates it and get’s it ready for packaging. Bill isn’t on social media so we created #BillPitts to get him some love on our social media…there’s even a beer brewed for him called #BillPitts. When he’s not taking care of HCB beers he the pianist in a band called Cletus Baltimore!!

Brenton St. John is one of our first bartenders we’ve ever had in the taproom, and arguably the most knowledgeable of our bar staff when it comes to beer styles, trends, tastes and aromas. Brenton is the frontman of local heavy-metal troublemakers, Godwin Falcon, and he also bartends downtown at craft beer bar, Closed for Business. Brenton grew up in Germany, and he knows the variety and rich traditions of German beers like the back of his hand. He manages the bar now, and he can always find the pint that you’re looking for, always willing to enlighten people with his extensive wealth of beer knowledge.

Chris Brown is our fearless leader, our Mayor of the Flavor Jungle, and basically, our brewery dad. He makes sure that we’re all well-educated on the creation of our sacred brews, keeps us smiling, and even lets us contribute names to the beers. He’s a graduate of BGA Sacramento and did his apprenticeship at Gordon Biersch in Atlanta. He also went to College of Charleston, so it’s no question that he knows what a good beer tastes like. That’s where he met Joel, Sean and Mac, the other owners of Holy City Brewing, and it’s all history from there. He’s a lagering maniac, and you can give him a hug on the blue floor when you get “Overly Friendly” at our spot.

Darryl is one of the first people to work in our kitchen when it opened up, and we’re glad to still have him amongst our ranks. Darryl makes sure that your food gets the appropriate amount of TLC, and that it makes it to your table, hot and ready for you to devour. We’re glad to have Darryl around here, and he lets us know it by keeping us all well-fed.

Elliott is our kitchen manager at Holy City Brewing, and most of the specials we run throughout the week are his take on regional American pub-fare delicacies. He’s got a keen eye at putting interesting takes on traditional bar food staples, and he loves jamming out to Sheryl Crow while he puts his knife skills to work and fries your burger up to perfection. Elliott and Joel Norman tag-team the kitchen like the Legion of Doom, and their hard work is evident with every juicy, meaty bite you take out of an order of Collision Fries.

Jack Pitts is our brewer, but that one word doesn’t particularly describe what it is that he does. He’s retrofitted a shipping container and turned it into our souring room, with crazy funky yeasts and different booze barrels, and he’s got the best sense of fashion out of anyone we’ve ever employed at the brewery. We call him “Alvin Klein”, as he’s rumored to be Calvin’s shorter, balder bearded brother. You can thank Jack in person at the brewery for any sours you may have consumed there, or you could just compliment him on how his beard matches his brew boots.

James St. Clair has over a decade of experience in the Charleston bar circuit. Hell, I used to scoop ice cream at Beach Biz while he washed dishes down the boardwalk at Coconut Joe’s on Isle of Palms while we were budding teenagers. He’s the most clean-cut gentleman at our brewery, and although his nicknames are not family-friendly enough to post on our site, he’s a solid guy who will get you beer while it’s cold and food while it’s hot. He also plays keys and runs the crazy lighting rig for Carnaval, Charleston’s premiere lazer-light-show indie-rock outfit.

Known to the bar staff as “Big Dog,” Jeremy Braxton-Brown is a two-time national water polo champion from UCLA. He likes his beers as hoppy, piney, and full of resin as they come, and he’s the tallest guy behind the bar, so he can see you from a mile away. He never stops singing, no matter what music is on, and if you catch him with a cross look on his face, you’d be the first one in history to do so. Jeremy keeps the morale of the bar staff at an all-time high, and is hands-down the best karaoke singer than the brewery has to offer. Ask this guy about IPAs and pale ales, because he knows what’s what in the hoppy beer department.

Joel Norman is our pyromaniac knife expert, and the head chef of the kitchen at Holy City Brewing. He’s from Parma, which is outside of Cleveland, and our restaurant is his legitimate brainchild. It also makes him a “Parma-san”, and that’s kind of funny! He likes to keep pub food exactly that, but he uses a simple, elegant and creative mindset on each of the dishes that come out of our kitchen, and chances are, if you ate one of the items off of his menu, you’re thinking about it right now if you read this. Joel is a chemist, so naturally, he loves to smoke meat and to light stuff on fire. Our kitchen is a perfect place for him. He likes hopped-up ales and sours, in case your Holy City Burger was so damned tasty that you want to buy the kitchen a sixer.

JT Stellmach used to be our taproom manager, but he’s elevated his position to that of the jet-set lifestyle, living on the go across the southeast to make sure that we’ve got someone at every event that we do. You can find him sharing our beer across the land, and his wealth of knowledge on each and every brew that we do is only outdone by his internet celebrity stardom and his terrifyingly magnetic charisma. If you’ve been to any events that aren’t at our homebase, this is the guy who poured you beers and told you about our wares.

Julie’s been with Holy City Brewing since the very beginning, when we were but an empty warehouse with a few tanks in the corner and a few kegs on the ground. Julie’s brothers run Palmetto Collision, across the parking lot from the brewery, and the Stallings family is as Holy City as it gets. Jules has seen more brews pass through the tap wall than anyone else in the brewery besides Chris Brown, who brewed them. At our brewery, we’re lucky to have people that want to stick with us and see this thing through, and Julie is a shining example.

Karen has earned her nickname, “MVP”, because of her hard work and unbridaled enthusiasm. She’s our no-nonsense den mother of the bar, and every moment spent with her is really, truly, a pleasure of the human existence. You can find her full-time at the bar, pouring our delicious and varied brews, and she also runs her own private event company, making sure that the sophisticates and the tuxedos and evening gowns of Charleston are treated like royalty with a full glass of whatever their hearts desire. She’s also an avid animal lover, who takes great care of our brew cats, in addition to her eight dogs and four cats that she has at home. Ask her about her summertime pool parties, and you just may be lucky enough to get invited to one!

Leigh Anne is the lady of our kitchen, and she has a background working at different fast-paced bars and restaurants. She also is a pastry chef, so any of the sweets you might see on our ever-changing brunch menu probably came out of her brain. Her culinary background gives the kitchen’s recipes a level of succulence and decadence that really tie all of them together. She also got engaged recently so make sure you tell her congratulations! (Congrats, LA!)

Mike’s got a dry sense of humor, but he won’t send out a dry burger. He’s been with us since we opened the kitchen in 2015, and like all of us, he loves to drink beer, so we’ve managed to keep him around. Mike is an expert when it comes to sauces and slaw, so chances are if you’ve eaten something from our kitchen, you’ve got something to thank him for. Mike also is a regular contributor to our daily specials we run, specifically the Asian and Mexican-themed dishes. He’s both our slaw-dog and our sauce-boss.

Nickie Stone does all of our photography, and she has since we broke ground on the buillding. She takes some great photos, and recently she’s been making framed ambrotype photography on glass, some real cool old-school photographs. If you want great photos of any events you’ve got going on, do what Holy City Brewing does and call Nickie. She’s the best!

Hey there! It’s Paul, the guy who wrote all these employee biographies. I have been with the company for three years, and when I’m not posting on the Holy City Instagram or Facebook, you can probably find me tending bar up at the taproom. Thanks for reading my biography! I wasn’t sure anyone would. I’m a Leo-Virgo cusp, and I like riding my bike, writing rap songs, and playing video games!

Sarah joined us in July of 2017. She’s no stranger to serving our product, though, as she joined us after serving as the General Manager of the Tattooed Moose downtown for quite some time. Sarah knows her drafts and she knows customer service, which is good because it didn’t require us to put her through the rigorous and extensive training regiments that we have to unleash on most of the other employees.

Sarah works as active shift lead with us full-time, so you’ll see her behind the bar pouring up some foamy pints and making sure that everyone’s happy. It’s good thing she’s there, too, because it’s really, really difficult to get mad at her, because just like a Carolina Peach, she’s super sweet. She grew up east of the Cooper River in Mt. Pleasant, and is still proud to call Charleston her home. Now, go make her pour you some beer! You won’t regret it.

Taylor Pitts is the younger brother of Jack Pitts, our fashionable assistant brewer, but he’s much more than that. Taylor is a big, bad, BMX-ing maniac. His facial hair has won five competitive medals in the state of South Carolina, and he can take anything apart and put it back together again, whether it’s a car, a motorcycle, or the Holy City canning line. He’s always got a smile on his face, and why shouldn’t he? He proposed to his lady in the middle of King Street, too. A true badass.

Thomas Legare runs a local family farm, Legare Farms. He raises hogs over there, so we gave him a call when we started up the brewery to see if he felt like hauling off our spent grain to use it as feed for his pigs, and the rest is history. We’ve got a great reciprocal relationship with Thomas, because he gets free feed, and we get to properly dispose of our spent grain and get another use out of it. We get our whole hogs from his farm when we do pig-roasts, and sometimes he’ll bring us a bunch of different brats and sausages for our outdoor festivals and big-time events.