What makes a great brewery to you...

You missed the biggest one: quality. I don't give a shit about anything else on your list if the brewery doesn't produce excellent beer.

 

1 has to be consistency. A brewery, or any brand, can't expect to stay long if they can't replicate the same product. The taste of X in July has to be the same taste in November. Coke famously botched its brand by changing the formula. This wasn't really consistency, rather notice to the public they were changing, so they could avoid a claim of lack of consistency. What they were blamed for, probably justified, was a bad new recipe. Disirregardless, they recognized the importance of being consistent.
2 I prefer a brewery that can show their expertise in multiple styles. The ability to excell at more than one style shows; a commitment to training, growth, and teamwork; a desire to learn, experiment, and succeed; and just plain care in the development of the craft.
3 style expectations are the limitations on the ability to produce variety. Experimentation is important, but not to merely show how spicy, hoppy, or chocolatey, you can get your beers to taste. Rather, experimentation is important to show that you can learn how to make your beers more spicy, hoppy and chocolatey and still be considered good beer. I see no need to expand the styles, just make good beers within the known styles.
The other choices can be a part of the equation, but I think consistency, variety, and style expectations are the most important.

 

Make quality beer. It would be good to make really great tasting beer too, but that is subjective. I had a handful of beers this weekend that I didn't care for, but they weren't the style I like either. Therefore, execution could have been spot on, but the recipe was terrible or I didn't like it. For instance, making a beer with only Citra hops isn't always amazing, but done right and it will knock your socks off. On the same note, I had a single hopped beer with Sorachi Ace hops and it was gross. The beer could have been executed perfectly, but those hops are not good. What is the flaw there? Recipe in my opinion.
Liver and onions can be cooked perfectly.... but it's still liver and onions!

 

I also didn't respond because my choice would be quality of the beer. Budweiser is a consistent product.. that doesn't make AB my favorite brewery. I'm sure Lucid is cranking out batches of Air that are more consistent than Pseudo Sue but would I ever buy the former over the latter? No. Point being, consistency has no barometer on the quality of the beer.

De Garde is one of my favorite breweries, not for any of the reasons you listed above, they aren't local, they are trendy but that's not why I like them, they are definitely not consistent, and the price of entry is prohibitive considering I have to trade for any bottles I get. But I like them because of how good their beer is. Period.

 

Yup, I also didn't respond. I don't care about size, trendiness, reputation, price (to a certain extent) or any of the other options.
Make a good tasting beer. Slight variation in really good beer are generally accepted as long as they are still good. See Iowa Sue v FL Sue as we all know... Not consistent, but still way better than a consistent Air for example.

 

If you start your own brewery I would expect you to be able to produce 2 or 3 great beers on day one. If you can't make 2 or 3 great beers you probably shouldn't get in the business. Show me a brewery that sucks on Day 10 and I'll show you one that sucks 3 years later. Ames is a perfect example of this. I went to both Alluvial and Torrent on the same day right when they were both getting started out. I knew immediately which one was going to the good one and that hasn't changed since. Pulpit Rock was great from the start. 515 was great from the start. I can't think of one in Iowa that I thought sucked and then changed my opinion. Maybe Madhouse.

 

I'm with @mrpeterandthepuffers above. My favorite place in Des Moines area is 515. I drive past Firetrucker and Madhouse. Altoona and Bondurant are closer, but on date night, the wife and I go to 515. It's because we love the beer.
Alluvial is a super close second. It's about the same amount of time and I drive by a couple nice places but I like Alluvial's beer better.

 

Had the same thought but then noticed consistency mentioned "great beer" so I went with that, style expectations, and variety.

 

My ideal brewery doesn't make flawed beer. It's most important to me.

 

Great idea for a poll. My thoughts...

1) I interpreted Consistency as Quality, which is my #1
2) Creativity is also a big draw for me. I like to see innovation (in the shadow of consistency/quality)
3) Local is important to keep our favorites alive and support our community. Also, typically local means fresh!! And fresh is good!!