Three Pacific Northwest beer wholesalers are teaming up

washington state craft beer distribution — The blue is where craft beer is sold.

Washington is one of the great craft beer states, and a few distributors in the area are hoping to combine their resources in order to better bring them all to market.

Specifically: Click Wholesale Distributing Inc. and Click Distributing East Inc., two key craft and specialty beer, wine and spirits distributors throughout the Pacific Northwest, officially announced the sale of their company, pending supplier approval, to Craig Stein Beverage (CSB) who will simultaneously partner with the Odom Corporation to form Northwest Beverages, LLC owned equally by C. Stein Inc. and The Odom Corporation.

Closing is scheduled to take place March 31, 2017.

Let’s meet each one

Craig Stein Beverage (CSB) is a Vancouver, Wash.-based company that has been in business for more than 26 years with distribution centers in SW Washington and Boise, Sun Valley, Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, Idaho and Nyssa, Oregon.

The Odom Corporation is a Bellevue, Wash.-based company that provides wholesale distribution, sales and marketing of beer, non-alcoholic and soft drink beverages with distribution centers in Alaska, Hawaii, Washington and Idaho.

Click Distributing is a Renton, Wash.-based company with distribution centers in Renton and Spokane, Washington and Hayden, Idaho.

With all their powers combined…

The ownership teams think this combined organization will better serve the growing needs and competitive challenges of the regional market, which covers from Seattle to Vancouver to Boise to Coeur D’Alene to Spokane.

The existing Click organizations will continue to operate independently for the foreseeable future. Click will offer its personnel and best practices to the overall Odom and CSB organizations and vice versa.

Click management and substantially all of the Click staff will continue with the new organization including Jim Florio as the vice president/general manager of the Western WA Click operation and Terry Nichols as vice president/general manager of the Eastern WA/North ID Click operation; Rick Steckler and Josh Davis will provide consulting services for the overall group.

“We are excited that the strength of Odom and CSB combined with the addition of the Click organizations will create a larger and stronger Northwest distribution network. We are confident this will lead to increased market service and penetration capabilities that would be an additional benefit to the suppliers and customers of all the involved companies,” said Craig Stein.