Conversations with John Flaherty

Today we’d like to introduce you to John Flaherty

Hi John, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started home brewing in 2011 back in Florida when craft beer was much less available there. After a trip to GABF in 2013 I fell in love with Denver and it’s beer scene. After moving to Denver, I continued my love of home brewing trying to make as many styles as possible, and worked/volunteered at several breweries around town – Black Project Spontaneous Ales I was at ~2 years and learned the most from. Shortly after COVID and being cooped up inside like everyone else I had an itch to make something with my hands again (my day job is software working remote).
After spending a while writing up a business plan and figuring out how to get a small budget for a brewery I convinced my wife Melanie and a good friend Sam Odom to go in and get Wanderment Brewing up and running. We opened our doors to the public in June 2024 just 7 months after we acquired our lease at 800 E 64th Ave, Unit 8, Denver, CO 80229! Now we are a dog friendly tap room offering a variety of styles with a focus on reviving mixed culture saisons.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not at all, brick & mortar businesses are never easy but combined with a very limited budget in a declining economy with ingredients going up all the time and less beer drinkers it’s been anything but easy. Finding the right spot to open was a real challenge because breweries require specific zoning, usually industrial since we’re manufacturing and open to the public. It took at good 9 months to find our space that also fit our very limited budget.
On a light side, the craft beer community has been amazing every time we needed help and could reach out. Cohesion, Bruz, Berkeley Alley, milieu fermentation, and River North were especially generous with helping us get up and running, I’m not sure if we could have gotten to where we are today without them so I can’t thank them enough.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m still a full time software engineer of almost 20 years in my day job. Thankfully my full time job is remote and I’m able to be at the brewery to check on things or accept deliveries just like working at a coffee shop.
The dream is to be able to focus on Wanderment full time, until then I just won’t sleep much!

Our saison releases are some of my most proud beers, especially the ones aged in gin barrels. I don’t see many breweries releasing saison these days in Colorado much less gin barrel aged so I think that’s something that really sets us apart and gets people wanting to check us out.

What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Being inquisitive, modest, and obsessing about quality of our beers over all. There’s times I will stay at the brewery until 2 or 3 am to make sure everything is right, it’s really all about the small details with craft beer in my opinion.
I’ve had several home and professional brewers since opening come by tell me their ideas for what makes a good beer and there’s been a few times I’ve tried some new techniques based on that and saw some really cool results, it’s a good reminder to never have an ego and be open to new ideas.

Pricing:

• Our draft beers range from $7 – $9 on draft
• $5 select drafts on Wednesdays all day
• 1/2 off draft beers when buying a 4 pack on Thursdays all day
• 4-packs to go range from $14 Czech Pilsners to $21+ DDH hazy IPAs
• Saison releases we do bottle pours, usually $8 – $12 and always 500ml bottles to go ranging from $17 – $25.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wanderment.beer
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wandermentbrewing
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wandermentbrewing
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/wanderment-brewing-denver
• Other: Google maps – https://maps.app.goo.gl/UuUJ1JdBe4cLPQtW6

Image Credits
The picture of me was taken by Porchdrinking, same with the Grovekeeper bottle picture, otherwise the rest are our pictures.