The Seahawks got busted by science for selling watered-down beer

The Seattle Seahawks have been accused of doing something shameful and wrong to the great sports fans of the Pacific Northwest.

According to a study conducted by KOMO News in Seattle in conjunction with a local laboratory, the beer at CenturyLink Field has lower levels of alcohol than is advertised by the breweries. It's not just Seahawks fans who are affected, either. The Seattle Sounders of MLS play at the stadium as well. 

Some of the brews had alcohol by volume levels more than a half percent lower than the advertised number. This is actually a pretty serious thing, since federal law prohibits vendors from selling beer with ABV levels more than 0.3 percent below the advertised number.

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The Red Hook No Equal brand tested at 4.8 percent alcohol content against an advertised content of 5.2 percent. Shocktop was at 4.7 percent (advertised 5.2 percent).

Bass Pale Ale and Budweiser were each off by 0.6 percent.

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Fans, of course, were not pleased.

“It’s money, man. Greed," a fan named James Walker told the television station. "Same thing as everybody else. What makes the world go around? Money."

An Anheuser-Busch representative told KOMO that the beer at CenturyLink Field is the same as what it sells to “bars, restaurants, convenience stores and other retail locations.”

The company, which owns all of the beers tested except for Red Hook, also said its own test “found no irregularities.”

"In this case, the collection and transport using a plastic container, the lab and testing method could all fail to protect the alcohol content, which would explain the same variance in all samples taken," the beer conglomerate said in a statement, according to ESPN's Darren Rovell. 

The lab that conducted the tests said it's possible the discrepancies could be a result of the testing process, but "the results are off enough to absolutely merit more testing and investigation," according to KOMO.

Hopefully someone will eventually get to the bottom of this very important matter.

- Phil Watson