Click Imports

I don’t know what good it will do anyone on Unilocal for me to write a review of Click Imports but, as someone who has dealt with them for over ten years, anything I can do to help their cause is something I’m happy to do.
You probably don’t even know the name Click, just like you wouldn’t have any reason to know of Noble Wines Ltd., Alaska Distributing, Unique Wines, or any of the other local distributors of beverages unless you’re running a wine shop or grocery store beer/​wine department. But these guys are the ones who actually determine what gets into Seattle AT ALL. Our «three tier» system of wine distribution — producer to distributor to retailer — is the way ALL out-​of-​state wines and beers get into your local Esquins and Safeways. It’s the LAW, folks. The only wineries or breweries that Washington retailers can buy directly from are those within our borders. Two inches into Oregon and they need a distributor… or you have to drive yourself down and get it or have it direct shipped; a thing which is possible from only about half the states in the US. So, the buyers with our local distribs are the people who choose what I, the wine shop guy, will have to pick from. And Click Wholesale does this better than almost everyone in this area.
Click’s beer portfolio is mind-​boggling. With the exception of a small, badly-​run importer down in SoDo, Click handles most of the world’s greatest imported beers, both in their core catalog and by special order. The lists run on for pages and the beers are selected by one of the most knowledgeable ale connoisseurs I have ever encountered, a small, tatooed, pierced, whip-​smart Tasmanian Devil of a guy named Matt Younts. Matt knows more about beer than most brewers and will tell you everything you want to know about any beer in Click’s catalogs or anybody else’s — unless you stop him. And what separates Matt AND Click from nearly every other specialty wine and beer distributor with whom I’ve ever worked is that they afford every item in their catalog the same respect in handling and promotion. To Click, there is no such thing as unimportant or «lesser» beers or wines. Matt, for all his knowledge, is the most unsnobbish beer lover I’ve ever come across. I habitually bad-​mouth Anheuser-​Busch beers — especially Bud, which I have occasionally referred to as «Satan’s Urine» — and did that around Matt one day. «Hey, I’ll drink a Bud,» he replied, «Gimme a hot day and a softball game and a Bud is EXACTLY what I want.»
Every time you go into Browar’s, BottleWorks, QFC, Esquin, Cost Plus, or any other local vendor of ales and find Belhaven, Brasserie DuPont, Ommegang, Young’s, Delirium Tremens, or over 100 other amazing craft brews, you’re dealing with Click. They’re a Seattle-​based, home-​grown business and, IMHO, are what combining love of your product with smart marketing chops is all about.