Seahawks Selling Watered Down Beer

The 12th Man has been getting shafted by the Man. The Seattle Seahawks have reportedly been selling fans watered down beer at CenturyLink Field home games. Seattle’s KOMO News went undercover to collect six samples of draft beer from concessions stands at Seahawks and Sounders games. They lab-tested the beer and found these results:

Stella Artois:
5.0% advertised ABV
4.8% tested

Bud Light:
4.2% advertised
3.9% tested

Redhook Brewery No Equal:
5.2% advertised
4.8% tested

Shocktop:
5.2% advertised
4.7% tested

Bass Pale Ale:
5.1% advertised
4.5% tested

Budweiser:
5.0% advertised
4.4% tested

Federal law prohibits vendors from selling beer that is less 0.3% below the advertised content. This latest finding comes on the heels of a 2011 discovery that a CenturyLink “King” beer costing $8.50 had the same liquid volume as the regular-sized beer for $7.25. CenturyLink officials chalked that scandal up to a mishap with the cup vendor. Also, in August of this year Forbes reported that beer sold at Seahawks home games was the second most overpriced in the NFL, topped only by the Detroit Lions. The cheapest 16 oz beer at CenturyLink cost $8 in the 2013 season. Forbes called that a 710% markup from the same beer’s average local price of 99 cents at grocery stores.

So we’re left to speculate on this latest Seattle beer heist. Could it be Seattle’s infamous rainwater filling your cup before you can chug it down? Could it be greedy vendors helping the margins, similar to what was discovered at San Diego’s Petco park during the great watered down “stadium keg” caper of 2008? Or maybe it’s CenturyLink officials trying to keep the NFL’s loudest fans from getting drunk and unruly? At any rate, outraged fans have got to be thinking it’s time for the 12th man to smuggle in his own 12th can.