Left Hand to launch first taproom outside of Longmont

DENVER — Left Hand Brewing Co., a Longmont craft beer maker famous for its nitro stouts, will open its first operation outside of Boulder County with a new taproom in the former Liberati Restaurant & Brewery space in Denver’s Curtis Park neighborhood. 

“We’ve been looking at a lot of different options over the past several years, and Denver has been a place we’ve really wanted to expand down to,” Kristina Schostak, Lefthand’s communications manager, told BizWest Thursday. “So it was really about finding the right spot.”

That spot is Liberati, an eatery and brewery at 2403 Champa St. that closed earlier this month. Liberati, launched by Rome native Alex Liberati, specialized in Italian cuisine and oenobeer, an Italian beer-making technique that uses both grains and grapes. 

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Left Hand co-founder Eric Wallace “has had a long-standing relationship with Alex Liberati,” Schostak said. “So when, unfortunately, that [restaurant concept] didn’t work out, [Liberati and Wallace] wanted to find a way to keep utilizing that space.”

The brewery and restaurant encompasses about 12,000 square feet and features a seven-barrel brewing room, 50 beer taps, a large patio and a 36-car parking lot, a rarity in Denver’s downtown neighborhoods. 

“It’s an amazing area … that’s really close to several different neighborhoods” such as Five Points, River North (RiNo), Lower Downtown (LoDo) and Ballpark, Schostak said. 

Left Hand, the state’s third-largest craft brewery, will offer a rotating selection of small-batch beers available exclusively at the Curtis Park taproom. Locally sourced hard kombuchas, seltzers and CBD-infused beverages will also be on tap.

Liberati and members of the Liberati Restaurant & Brewery kitchen staff will continue operating the food side of the business. But the menu will pivot away from Italian cuisine toward elevated pub grub served from a counter.  

“We’ve never done food before,” Schostak said of Left Hand. Liberati and his team “are excellent at what they do and have decades of kitchen experience.

Despite Liberati’s continued involvement, the entire taproom — restaurant included — will be Left Hand branded. 

Left Hand is planning to open the Curtis Park outpost this summer.