Left Hand Brewing launches employee stock ownership plan

In July, the Longmont based brewery announced the launch of an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP.) This means shares will be repurchased from current stockholders, then placed in a trust with each eligible employee receiving an annual allocation.

Eric Wallace, CEO of Left Hand, co-founded the brewery in 1993.  He told KGNU’s Steve Miller that the ESOP is a natural progression for the company.  Wallace said the late 1990s and early 2000s were a difficult time in craft brewing, with 100s of breweries failing and growth screeching to a halt. “We had to go through a big layoff and give paycuts to the remaining employees, just to be able to survive. And when we did that, we said to 4 key players “hey if you stick around for a couple of years and help get us over this really rough patch, we’ll give you a slice of ownership in the company.”  3 of the 4 people we offered that stuck around.

The company currently employs 112 people and produces  4478 cases of beer and, over 107,000 of bottles of beer a day.