First Man Brewery

Brewery, Beer-to-go

437 E Madison Ave
Derby, Kansas, 67037
United States

(316) 260-3675 | map
firstmanbrewery.com

Adam developed an early passion for the art of brewing. His father started a homebrew club that became nationally accredited for its skills and practices. It won the 1996 National Homebrew Club of the Year Award when Adam was only 5 years old. However, his father took a hiatus from brewing until the kids came of age.

As Adam grew up, he pursued other passions and forgot about the art of brewing.

When Hannah was perusing garage sales one afternoon, she came across home brewing equipment. Before jumping all over the deal, she called Adam, which led to Adam calling his father. By the end of the day, Adam and his father created a plan to brew a beer.

That first beer, a pale ale made with Cascade hops, was BAD. But learning from mistakes is what life’s about, right?

That first beer gave Adam A LOT of opportunities to learn and pushed him to pursue brewing for a living. The next day, he started Googling the cost of starting a brewery.

We dug deep into what it took to create a brewery and explored many options — food trucks, brewing out of our shed, you name it.

2019
Adam contacted over 20 banks while working with the Kansas Small Business Development Center to start the process of building our business. Hannah was there to motivate (read: push) and support him along the way.

In 2020, the dreaded COVID-19 broke out and everything shut down. It caused numerous setbacks in our progress.

As everyone settled into a new normal, we continued to experience setbacks with securing financing and getting construction going on our original location. Unfortunately, it ended up falling through.

In 2022, everything came together and our dream finally became a reality. First Man Brewery was born.

First Man Brewery is family-owned and Catholic-owned, which comes through in the subtle aspects of our branding and beers. We’re also the only brewery in Derby, Kansas!

We love Derby, and it’s the home to our budding family of 6. But as our family grew, we longed for the freedom to easily grab a beer and visit with friends or family outside of their homes. (And let’s be honest, no one wants to load up four kids to trek into Wichita just for a beer.)

We wanted to give other Derby families that freedom too — a convenient place to grab a beer that’s welcoming to kids. So opening First Man Brewery in Derby was a no-brainer. Being located across from Madison Avenue Central Park make