The Seattle Sounders were the first of the three Cascadian teams (Seattle, Portland and Vancouver) to make it’s way into the MLS. There’s a long rivalry, which goes back to the mid-70s when all three teams were in the original NASL and all three were long-lived and successful teams in a league which was known for having franchises pop up and quickly disappear again in short order. All three teams have had incarnations in the NASL, USL and now the MLS.
The Sounders are clearly doing a lot of things right, being one of the few expansion teams to qualify for the MLS Playoffs in their inaugural season, and currently have the highest regular attendance for league matches and the second highest attendance for any MLS match (versus Portland on October 7th, 2012).
Team: Seattle Sounders FC
Conference: West
Place: 3rd in the West, 7th in the League (as of October 13th, 2012)
Top Scorer: Eddie Johnson
Designated Players: Fredy Montero (COL), Mauro Rosales(ARG), Christian Tiffert(GER)
Head Coach: Sigi Schmid
Main Goalkeeper: Michael Gspurning (AUS)
Largest Supporter’s Group: Gorilla FC
Brewery: Elysian Brewing
Beer Name: Prometheus IPA
About the Brewery:
Elysian Brewing was started in 1995 by a banker, a spirits wholesaler and a former homebrewer gone pro who had previously worked at the Duwumps Cafe, Big Time Brewing and Pike Place Brewery. Until 2011, large batches of their core beers would be brewed at New Belgium’s brewery, but Elysian has since opened a 35, 000 sq.ft. production facility in Seattle.
Style: American IPA
Serving: 22oz bottle
ABV: 6.7%
Official description: “A Northwest interpretation of a classic English style, golden copper in color and loaded with New World hop flavor and aroma. Extremely drinkable.”
How the beer qualified to be the beer for this team:
Good ol’-fashioned location. Elysian’s Elysian Fields pub is located a mere 0.2 miles from CenturyLink field. Google maps says 1 min by car. Or you could walk around the corner.
Review:
Presentation:
A reasonably attractive label with nice fonts is somewhat ruined with a sketchy, disproportionate painting of a female tattooed fire eater with dreadlocks.
Appearance:
A somewhat cloudy light-amber coloured beer (they claim red, but not quite) that pours with an off-white rocky head that lingers significantly (Does one wait, watch and time how long it takes to dissipate or tuck in? Tuck in, obviously.) The head leaves significant lacing on the glass.
2/3
Aroma:
As one would expect with an American IPA, citrus notes hit the nose first, with lemon, lime and a touch of orange and floral notes. The malt makes itself known with subtly sweet honey and caramel notes and some delicious dark biscuit smell. Too many IPAs don’t have enough aroma from the malt. This one has a very nice mix of hops and malt.
10/12
Flavour:
The hops add noticeable lemon and generic citrus flavours, as well as a subtle grassiness. There’s also a nice lingering piney-ness which pairs well with the lingering bitterness which both emerge from under the citrus notes.
The malts combine a rich complexity of biscuit, walnut, caramel and honey notes to balance the hops’ bitterness and citrus flavours. A very three-dimensional beer.
17/20
Mouthfeel:
The body is fairly dry with a slight viscosity. The bitterness is strong enough to leave a physical sensation on the back of the tongue.
4/5
General Comments:
This is a very fine example of a West-Coast North American IPA, which combines noticeably citrusy hops with a strong malt presence. In too many examples of the style, the malt is an afterthought to the hops. Very well balanced.
I cheated and looked at their website and looked at the hop and malt bills for this beer. This beer uses Citra and Sorachi Ace hops for the citrus flavours. Surprisingly, this is two reviews in a row which use the relatively uncommon Japanese Sorachi Ace variety. Both are very nice beers, so clearly this hop variety is worth consideration.
Another very international beer, with the British-origin IPA style using Japanese and American hop varieties and Belgian Special B malt.
9/10
Total: 42/50 – 84%
Match Fit?: Goal! – A great beer. A lovely curving strike into the top corner after beating three defenders.
Footie and Fermented Barley 
October 17, 2012 at 5:58 am
Sorry. The biggest Supporter’s group in Seattle is the Emerald City Supporters.