What makes a brewery great?

I want consistency/reliability, even if a brewery makes only a single beer I like.

I don't like negative surprises.

 

Making great beers, different styles and not afraid to push the envelope. For example: Westbrook, The Bruery, Cigar City, etc.

 

Victory is amazing and one of the few breweries who takes on such a wide array of styles, and well. I know of no other to be honest

 

New Glarus?

 

Would have to be a Wisconsian to know, which I fortunately am not

 

I had a 2010 CCB Guava Grove tonight and it blew my mind. That makes them great.

 

What makes a great brewery great? I love this question. I always enjoy comparing breweries and for me it comes down to 5 things.

First and foremost is taste. No matter what others think, if I don't like it then I'm not likely to buy again. One caveat - always be willing to give a brewery a second chance. I don't try to rate breweries until I've had at least 3 of their offerings.

That being said branding is a key component. A companies street cred and how they are positioned in the market can affect their ratings. Dogfish Head is the best example I can think of with their off - color beers. Russian River and 3 Floyds are also uniquely positioned.

Third is availability. Wider distribution helps because then there are more opportunities to impress. I love breweries like Elysian, Firestone Walker, and Maine, but they are hard to come by for me. This is also where being a good local brewery can help in my rankings.

Probably the second most important thing to me is value because nothing turns me off to a brewery like buying a $12-$20 ounce bottle of beer that leaves more to be desired. Providing quality beer at a reasonable price like Sierra Nevada, Terrapin, Bells, Anchor, and Southern Tier to name a few will encourage me to repeat purchases.

Lastly, a great brewery needs a solid core lineup and consistently great special releases. It is this balance of great beer and new offerings that keeps breweries relevant. This is where Founders really excels.

Based on these factots, my current top 10 is: Founders, Terrapin, Russian River, Bells, Firestone Walker, Anchor, Weyerbacher, Sweetwater, Maine, 3 Floyds

 

Maybe Deschutes? I think they suffer in reputation a bit from ure availability, but I think they outperform Founders ... they just lack a "rare" beer. When Abyss was less available, it was more desired. Mirror Mirror just came out again and it's EVERYWHERE, but it's still excellent. Black Butte and Founders Porter are comparable. Founders doesn't make a basic stout, and Obsidian is excellent. In terms of IPA / IIPA / PA / Cascadian IPA quality and diversity, Deschutes wins with Fresh Squeezed, Chasin Freshies, Hope Henge, Hop Trip, Hop in the Dark, Red Chair, Mirror Pond, Inversion, etc. Mirror Mirror is killer. Abyss is great. The Black Butte anniversaries are awesome. They make one of the better basic winter warmers in Jubelale. They now have a solid Pilsner in the line up with Pine Mountain. River Ale isn't called a session beer, but it basically is, and it's comparably rated to All Day. Cinder Cone is a great Amber. And with Conflux, The Dissident, and The Stoic they've shown they can make some pretty good Belgian / odd styles.

And their beers are generally cheaper.

 

Great comparison. Large scale brewery still making beers that excite the beer geeks. I would definitely put Deschutes up there with Founders, absolutely. Even though they don't come to NJ (yet) I still try basically everything they try and it's all awesome stuff. I have a Green Monster and BB XXV in my cellar waiting for the right time to crack...errr peel off that wax.

 

I still come back to my point that "great" is a grossly overused word, it should be applied very sparingly.
Take sportsmen , at international level there are many fine and outstanding players and athletes. They have to be simply to compete at this level. Yet relatively few of them, though good enough to be selected to represent their country, are considered "great"
There are many superb breweries producing many outstanding beers.It takes more than this to earn the epithet of "great"

 

You have hit on one of those topics that most will not acknowledge. Hand in hand is an emphasis on worker safety. A brewery is a dangerous work environment, and those breweries that do everything to make it a safe environment are the great ones.

 

A great brewery is one that makes great beer consistently for the lowest price possible. this requires relentless attention to detail in every aspect of the process: water, ingredients and sources, recipes, sanitation, and all of the technical aspects of brewing must be attended to with single-minded zeal each and every hour of every day.

 

And if providing the lowest price possible means paying their workers crappy wages and offering lousy benefits, are they still a great brewery?

 

I was mentally including such in the "admirable business or environmental practices" bit of my post.

This is pure and absolute conjecture on my part, but there's a decent chance that Maine Beer Co. sets their prices based on the overhead they have including employee salaries and environmental considerations. If Sierra Nevada faces similar expenses (I have no idea), perhaps the scale of their operation is large enough that they can price their beers very competitively and still turn a healthy profit. Maine's products might be appropriately priced given their resolutions and size. Once again, pure conjecture.

 

The Bruery makes some truly awful beers, and many pedestrian ones. I can't argue that their barrel-aged stuff isn't great, but their sour beers are subpar and their saisons are average. The problem with their pricing is simply that they charge so much more than other breweries for beer that is often times worse than other stuff easily available off-the-shelf.

 

Truthfully, I kind of figured that it's pricey because of that reason as well. I do want to support them, but it's just a bit out of price range all the same.

 

I hear ya. I don't purchase much from them. While Lunch was far from my favorite of their offerings, I would certainly characterize them as making "quality product."

 

I dont know that I would agree with that. Range of styles isnt what makes a great brewery. It making good beer. If the Alchemist, or any other brewer for that mtter, chooses to make one beer and do it exceptionally well...there is certainly something to be said for that.

 

Would you go to a restaurant that only serves one dish? Even if they make that one dish incredibly well?

I have 5 or so parts in my personal non-official great brewery checklist

• Make great year rounds
• make great special releases/one offs/seasonals
• distribute to a decent chunk of the country (doesn't have to be all 50, but at least cover your own damn state)
• great quality control
• reasonable prices

Some IMO great breweries are Stone, Victory, Founders, Deschutes, Cigar City, Bells, Alesmith, Ballast Point, Great Lakes, Sierra Nevada, Lagunitas etc.

 

Sounds like you are describing things you look for in a good brewery taproom. Good breweries don't need to have good food or any food for that matter.