Core principles to starting up and running a brewery

[Ciderhead]

I know there are a lot of wanna be microbrewers out there, I am curious as to what homebrewers and craft beer drinkers think is core, please put down what you think is important in a brewery to get a product to market, this may benefit start-ups or may also tell you as a homebrewer how to improve your process.
There are no right or wrong points here just ideas.

1. Be able to brew good beer
2. Be able to brew good beer consistently
3. Be mindful of expensive ingredients
4. Plan in advance your preferred packing method and make sure it doesn't impact on product quality of your product
5. Hygiene, Hygiene, Hygiene on
6. Logistics of getting your product to market
7. Marketing and promotion
8. Innovation, constantly take a hard look at your product and listen to customer feedback and tweek, to stay ahead of the competition
9. Rules and regulations governing rates, duty, product liability
10. Paperwork
11. Positioning, having established your outlets how do you maintain your product at preferred outlets with so much competition?

I am not a commercial brewer and have no intention of starting a brewery but I do see less than 50% of that list is related to brewing beer

[Beerbuddha]

Health and safety would be a priority i think...safe practice and equipment designed to high safety standards

Proactive and experianced engineering staff be able to innovate, reduce brewing cost eliminate rework and waste
my 2 cent

[Ciderhead]

Cheers BB fell free to add to the list trying to slot in where appropriate
Completely forgot about staff what an egit!

1. Be able to brew good beer
2. Be able to brew good beer consistently
3. Be mindful of expensive ingredients
4. Plan in advance your preferred packing/delivery method and make sure it doesn't impact on product quality of your product
5. Highly qualified and trained Staff and retention of same.
6. Hygiene, Hygiene, Hygiene on
7. Logistics of getting your product to market
8. Marketing and promotion
9. Innovation, constantly take a hard look at your product and listen to customer feedback and tweek, to stay ahead of the competition
10. Rules and regulations governing rates, duty, product liability, health and safety
11. Paperwork
12. Positioning, having established your outlets how do you maintain your product at preferred outlets with so much competition?

[Beerbuddha]

We cant all think about everything hence the list 

Building a relationship with suppliers be they the malt producers bottle suppliers to provide consistant quality products with reduced costs over time.

Working out standard operating procedures to drive help produce consistant quality product

Identify critical spare parts and have stores stocked accordingly

right def my last 2cents

[Ciderhead]

This is starting to sound like a lot of work!! I took out the numbers we can put them in at the end.

Be able to brew good beer
Be able to brew good beer consistently, using SOP's
Have the appropriate type and size of equipment required to brew the potential volumes required and allow for 100% expansion without having to buy all new kit, carry basic spares for breakdowns.
Have premises sufficiently large to allow for storage of ingredients, packging, equipment and short term storage of finished product. Also have sufficient space to double the size of your brewery in 2 years, moving is very disruptive.
Be mindful of expensive ingredients
Plan in advance your preferred packing/delivery method and make sure it doesn't impact on product quality of your product
Highly qualified and trained Staff and retention of same.
Hygiene, Hygiene, Hygiene
Logistics of getting your product to market
Marketing and promotion
Innovation, constantly take a hard look at your product and listen to customer feedback and tweek, to stay ahead of the competition
Rules and regulations governing rates, duty, product liability,
Health and safety
Paperwork
Develop relationships early on with your suppliers of raw materials and packaging, and keep an eye open at alternates.
Positioning, having established your outlets how do you maintain your product at preferred outlets with so much competition?

[Ciderhead]

Is that it then, anybody else, I don't know what all the fuss is about

[DEMPSEY]

I was going to write something good and profound but you have covered all the bases so I just have to all of the above .

[brenmurph]

Crises management:
floods, Fire,  illness, negative press, difficult equipment infection, inability to fulfil orders due to any reason

[brenmurph]

Boyles pub, Kildare, we were at a beer tasting / beer ( drink) history lecture, last night in KIldare in a lovely listed building over the pub...fab night out we had and beer ( Trouble), poitin  St Kevins, (40, 50, & 60% + sherry aged), wine, trappists, cocktails, and even had powers sponsored a hot whiskey with their own honey for  everyone. Also the girls that laid this on has a choice of gluten free food and aa non-alcohol version of everything including the beer (glutren free)..all that for 8 euros......THATS WAT THE HOMEBREW / CRAFT SCENE IS ABOUT

St Brigid aparantly was a shrewd business woman who  had a contingincy plan for wen the monks got so pished they fecked up the beer brews and they couldnt be sold....she had a back up of poiitin, mead and cider in a stash to keep the drinkers happy till the beer got brewed properly

[Ciderhead]

Back on topic there is even a book about it
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brewery-Planner-Guide-Opening-Running/dp/0937381519

[brenmurph]

"St Brigid aparantly was a shrewd business woman who  had a contingincy plan for wen the monks got so pished they fecked up the beer brews and they couldnt be sold....she had a back up of poiitin, mead and cider in a stash to keep the drinkers happy till the beer got brewed properly "

was always on topic... I just had an introductory paragraph leading to my keypoint

[Simon]

That's alright if you live state side. Im sure there will be a lot of info on kit and the like but all the legal stuff will be wrong.

The microbrewers hand book second edition is quite good. A lot of the legal and revenue stuff is copy and paste from the uk so should be more relevant.

[UpsidedownA (Andrew)]

It might be implicit in the foregoing, but I would add

Have inventory-stock keeping procedures to stay on top of ingredients and be able to track and identify beer from raw materials to packaged product (in case you have to recall anything or you get a dodgy bag of malt or something) and can ensure you have enough raw materials to meet your sales forecasts.

Oh and the biggest of big ones

You have to have enough cash to pay revenue, staff, suppliers etc well before you get paid for the beer (publicans usually take longer than 30 days to pay their accounts).