Total Wine & More - Bellevue

Typical BevMo that I like: Huge selection with everything in single cans. Lots of local breweries. Mostly warm, but some in the fridge.

It's a total wine and basically like every other total wine you'll encounter. Some good stuff here but nothing you can't find anywhere else.

Pretty standard looking Total Wine. Guy working there was fairly friendly on my visit and helped me make a few selections. Was only looking for singles to drink while in town for a couple days, and I successfully got some singles for just that purpose. If you want anything cold, they have some cooling tanks by the register and you can drop a couple in there while you shop and they will at least be cool by the time you walk out.

Vibe/ Ambiance: for a store- it is really great, very organized Quality: Some of the beers are older Service: Store staff is knowledgeable Selection: very wide selection, as good as it gets Visited: January 15, 2016

Made the trek out of Seattle at the recommendation of the venerable beastiefan2k - one of those grocery store sized liquor stores so common in the Midwest and west - this is not exactly a bad thing (some of my favorite beer stores fall into this category (see Binny’s in Chicago) - a lot of unrefridgerated beer sitting under bright fluorescent lighting - very extensive selection, though, all of which is organized by style (American craft beer) or country (imports) - seasonals and special releases have their own section as well - loads of singles - six packs if you’d rather - they seem to put things on sale often enough, but some product has clearly been sitting here forever, so I’m not sure how and when they decide to put stuff on sale - I saw 750s of Dupont Avril from 2012, and Stillwater 750s (they’ve been using 12 ounce bottles and bombers for quite some time now), just to give a few examples - prices were mostly fair - staff was non-existent while shopping (unless you count the dude pouring samples of some new beers who clearly wanted to get the hell out of there), but the girl who checked us out was nice - the selection and sales alone would get me to return, but it’s not what I’d call a great store.

The selection is pretty amazing, and a lot of the prices are pretty right on. They beat the crap out of breweries, wineries, and distributors over cost. That puts a good price on the shelf in some cases, most notably with a few beers and wines. This is an entire supermarket worth of aisles and coolers, all devoted to intoxicants of one form or another. You see wines when you walk in; walk to the far side of the front of the store and you’re in the beer aisles. Toward the back is the liquor. The beers are organized by country, with a whole aisle of American beers organized by the bigger style families--IPAs, stouts, and so on. Most of the beers are singles, and you can mix and match. There are a few six-packs, most of them are in coolers on the back wall. There are sixers and half racks and cases of the big industrial beers on another aisle. They’re actually pretty great about putting little buyer’s guides out, truth be told. They’re free, and there seem to be little stacks of them on just about every aisle. I could definitely see shopping here for bulk purchases (like before a party, or stocking a new bar or something). And the selection is vastly larger than supermarkets can offer. They don’t seem to have all the special beer releases that the little bottle shops have, but they did have at least one (Sneaky Pete from Laughing Dog) that’s not everywhere. Virtually none of the beer here is cold, though they do offer a few taps for tasters and growler fills.

Man. Prepare to be overwhelmed. Aisles and Aisles of beer and more beer at terrific prices. I think I have just found beer Nirvana.