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Our Story

The Holy City Brewing story is about four guys that dedicated themselves to craft beer and their community, aiming to bring more of one to the other.

In the Beginning

Joel Carl and Sean Nemitz teamed up first as business partners in the Charleston rickshaw and pedicab industry. During the slow winter months, they started homebrewing in the rickshaw shed. Soon, they had a custom 15-gallon all-grain pilot system welded from beer kegs and bicycle parts, which can be seen today in the taproom. Mac Minaudo was a friend of theirs who had a 4000-square foot warehouse on Dorchester Road, and Chris Brown was fresh out of brewer’s school, and when the four of them combined their talents, Holy City Brewing was born in 2011.

The Dorchester Road Days

The space on Dorchester went from rags to riches, in 2015 drawing crowds  right when laws changed. Four-ounce tastings were a thing of the past, and breweries were allowed to pour freely as long as they could provide onsite food. Joel Norman and Elliott Taylor helped establish the kitchen, and with their help, we turned the warehouse on Dorchester Road into something the community could be proud of.

Something New Brewing…

By 2017, the crew had outgrown the original Dorchester location. We couldn’t brew more beer and needed more space to meet the rising demand. We found the old public works building in Park Circle to call our new home, it had plenty of room for us to expand and even had floor drains. The taproom would occupy the office space and the brewhouse in the industrial auto body garage. We continued business as usual until December of 2019 when we were ready to open our doors to the new location to the world.

Onward and Upward!

It was a hectic time for the squad, but with a brand new four-vessel 30 barrels system and a taproom that could hold more than 300 people inside, we were ready to face the music. Three solid months of pouring beer and cocktails, and hundreds of pretzels and burgers later, we knew people appreciated the glow-up and that we did the right thing. Then COVID happened..

Lockdown in Charlestown

Three months after we opened our new location, the pandemic hit. We concentrated on selling packaged beer to go, specifically crowlers, growlers and six-packs. We temporarily started doing family take-and-bake meals and food delivery until we could open our doors again. We took state restrictions on table limits, spacing, and mask-wearing seriously, because we wanted people to feel safe. Luckily, we had six acres of land behind the brewhouse on Noisette Creek, and the beer continued to flow despite the restrictions of those ordinances.

Outdoor Bar, Stage, Event Space, and Beyond!

2021 was a big year for improvements around our new property. We built an outdoor stage with the painted container from Sean Williams, installed a stand-alone can bar with twelve taps in the middle of the marshside yard, and opened the Porter Room, which is our 450-capacity creekside event space. We’re looking forward to the future and all the improvements that the coming days will bring! Thanks for everyone who’s seen us along this far. We couldn’t have done it without you. Cheers!