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Snackin' & Yakkin'
A good brewery chat rarely stays on beer for long. This one starts with Low Tide Brewing, then veers into sunflower seeds, shark anxiety, sports-drink seltzer, and the age-old question of whether dolphins can be trusted.
That mix fits the place. Low Tide has become one of those Johns Island spots where the beer matters, the room has personality, and the conversation can go anywhere. So does Sam Pagano, who comes across like the kind of brewer who can explain a flagship beer and then spend five minutes debating the name of the shark from “Jaws.”
Sam Pagano and the Low Tide setup
Pagano is Low Tide’s head brewer, now director of brewing, and he’s been with the brewery for nearly six years. He moved down from upstate New York on July 4, 2020, after years in brewpubs, when COVID shutdowns made that side of the business feel shaky. Charleston won out over other job options, even though, by his own admission, he’s terrified of the ocean.
That tension is part of the fun. He works at a coastal brewery and still treats the water like it owes him money.
Low Tide’s current taproom on Maybank Highway has built a loyal crowd for more than beer. It’s hosted comedy, dance performances, and plenty of casual hangouts. The place also has a mural nodding to Quint and Bruce, which led to one of the episode’s best running jokes: Bruce is the name of the robot shark, not the shark itself. That matters to movie people.
For the brewery itself, the current layout puts production right out in the open. It looks great, because customers can see the tanks and the work up close. It also makes the job trickier when hoses, cleaning, and nearby tables all share the same space. You can keep up with the brewery at Low Tide Brewing.
Why the Johns Island expansion matters
Pagano described the new Low Tide build as a fix for both growth and function. The plan is a phased move, with brewing operations shifting first and the taproom following after more transition work. The big change is separation. Production will have more breathing room, while customers will still get a view through windows and from an added bar overlooking the brewing area.
That setup keeps the visual appeal without asking staff to scrub tanks next to someone’s pint.
The expansion also means control. Owning property gives the brewery more room to make beer, host people, and build something designed around how the business runs now, not how it started. State reporting on the project says the company is making a major investment in a larger Johns Island facility, with more jobs and a broader footprint in Charleston County, as covered in South Carolina’s expansion announcement.
The current space lets you see how the sausage is made. The new one keeps the show, but adds a better barrier between the audience and the hose.
The Low Tide beers that stole the show
Three pours framed the whole conversation, and each one showed a different side of Low Tide.
First came Divot Maker, a hard seltzer riff on a golf-course transfusion. Pagano broke it down simply: grape juice, lime juice, ginger puree, and enough alcohol to keep it from feeling like a polite mocktail. At 7.3% ABV, it lands with more punch than the average easy sipper, but the grape does a lot of the work. It sounds odd until you remember how good grape juice is, and how rarely anyone uses it in a drink worth ordering twice.
Then there was Blue Quencher, the fan favorite that first hooked Ben long before he visited the brewery. Pagano wouldn’t spell out the sports-drink inspiration, but he didn’t need to. It tastes like summer, nostalgia, and bad decisions in the best way. Low Tide’s own description, echoed on BeerMenus for Blue Quencher, calls it a brilliantly blue hard seltzer built to refresh people who work hard and party harder. That tracks.
Finally, Aloha Beaches closed things out. It’s Low Tide’s flagship pineapple wheat ale, easy to drink and important enough that the brewery now makes huge volumes of it. It has that ripe pineapple note that feels more like real juice than candy. Pagano was blunt about its role: this is the beer that pays the bills.
Food trucks, weird snacks, and total side quests
Low Tide doesn’t run its own kitchen, and that’s by design. Instead, the brewery rotates food trucks, which keeps the menu fresh and avoids the restaurant headaches nobody misses. Pagano shouted out familiar names like Rebel Taqueria, Doughboys Pizza, Chicken Fats, and Drunk Tony.
He seemed especially fond of Rebel Taqueria, partly for the food and partly for the vibe. It’s a wrestling-heavy spot with Taco Bell-style riffs done with more care, which feels like a perfect Charleston sentence.
The snack portion of the episode went fully off the rails. Bigs dill pickle sunflower seeds got the spotlight, with summer sausage as the backup act. From there, the conversation wandered through boiled peanuts, deep-fried peanuts, pickled eggs, pickled pig’s feet, pork brains in milk, Swedish Fish, circus peanuts, gym-class humiliation, and the rough economics of cheap toilet paper. That sounds chaotic on paper. On the show, it works.
Ocean fear, homebody habits, and Charleston life
Pagano is not a beach guy. He’ll stand there and look at the water, but getting in is another matter. Stingrays are a problem at the bottom, sharks are a problem in the middle, and dolphins are somehow a problem at the top because they’re too smart. By the end of the bit, sharks were the Bruces, stingrays were the Steves, and dolphins had been promoted to full ocean bullies.
That same mix of caution and humor shows up in how he talks about Charleston. He’s more homebody than social butterfly, especially after buying a house and planting fruit trees. He likes to cook, likes to eat out, and likes Lowcountry life without pretending he needs to be at a new hotspot every night.
Final thoughts
The best part of this episode is how clearly Pagano fits Low Tide. He’s serious about beer, funny without trying too hard, and honest about what makes a brewery work, good product, a useful space, and a place people want to stay.
Low Tide comes off the same way. It’s a brewery with a strong flagship, a cult-favorite seltzer, a bigger future on Johns Island, and enough personality to turn a Bruce-the-shark debate into a memorable beer conversation. For more of that energy, the full episode lives on Snackin’ & Yakkin’ on YouTube.
