GIGANTIC BREWING MAGAZINE ISSUE #4
Just three hours since they were in the field, these hops (200 lbs of them!) are ready to be made into fresh hop beer
Picking up the hops for this year’s Fresh Hop beer at Sudbuster Farms in the Willamette Valley
Ben and Van select 2017 hops
INSERT BAD HOP PUN HERE: It’s inevitable
that this issue of the magazine was going to come out at some point–you know, the one about hops. Every brewery wants to talk about their relationship to hops, and we’re no different. Except that maybe we are. You see, we built Gigantic’s brewery specifically with hops in mind. That gives us a particular advantage because of our ability to use whole hops, not just pelletized hops like almost every other brewery out there. In this issue you’ll read about how we go about selecting our hops and how we make fresh hop beers, two things that were important to us long before we even built the brewery. There’s also more artist interviews and info on some bands we’ve paired with, just so that you don’t think we’re complete philistines. And flip this over and you’ll see the next issue of the “Beery Adventures of BJ and Wu G.” Hopefully most of you of a certain age will understand the references we’re making, but those who don’t should enjoy the madcap adventure just the same. See you in the taproom.
As black as the uncaring hearts of the czars of Russia, as rich as their estates, as decadent as their palaces, and big enough for their empire. This imperial stout is nothing if not most premium. With rich notes of bittersweet chocolate, roast coffee and hints of caramelized sugar and licorice, Most Premium is meant to be savored.
ABV: 10% IBUs: 55
Color: BLACK Ideal Serving Temp: 50 F Suggested Glassware: SNIFTER
Ingredients: Local Bull Run water, barley, hops, yeast Malts: Northwest pale, Vienna, C45, C120, Chocolate, Roast, Black, Demerara Hops: Nugget, Cascade
MOST Russian Imperial Stout PREMIUM
LABEL ARTIST: Frank KOZIK BANDS: HATEBEAK, BOAR GLUE
Listen to exclusive most premium metal tracks from Hatebeak and Boar Glue at GiganticBrewing.com/pages/ MostPremium
FrANK KOZIK
is an American graphic artist best kown for his posters for alternative rock bands. Kozik has worked with Nirvana, The White Stripes, The Beastie Boys, Green Day, Neil Young, Pearl Jam, The Red Holt Chili Peppers, The Melvins and The Butthole Surfers. Kozik used to run Man’s Ruin Records, a media outlet and record label, and has published several books including Man’s Ruin, Posters and Art by Frank Kozik, and Depserate Measures Empty Pleasures. Kozik has been described as “one of the world’s top poster artists.”
HateBeak & BoaR Glue
are artists on the new Portland label, Puppy Mill Records. The featured songs from Hatebeak and Boar Glue are available to Gigantic fans as an exclusive preview. The tracks will be availalbe to the general public on a two band split 12” LP to be released in January 2018. Hatebeak is a side project of Blake Harrison (Pig Destroyer) and features a parrot as the vocalist. Richard Christy, the former drummer of Death, is the mastermind behind Boar Glue. Boar Glue stars Richard’s guinea pig on lead vocals. Warning: Neither band is for the tender of ear.
Facebook @fkozik www.frankkozik.net Twitter & Instagram @frankkozik
www.giganticbrewing.com/pages/mostpremium
Inspired by beers brewed in the 1800’s to win over the Russian Czar, this is the king of stouts, boasting high alcohol content and plenty of malt character.
BEN WALKER
Talks aRT & UNregulated Nunchucks Ben Walker loves making art and making people laugh. He also loves making art for people who make people laugh. Having found his happy place at the intersection where art and comedy meet, Ben has created show posters for comedians like Dana Gould and Maria Bamford and animation for the Adam Carolla Show. Ben is also exploring his love of scary movies and monsters with a new web store and zine called Cheap Chills. Here’s what he has to say about art and life: Your Catch 23 label with the bear fighting the eagle fighting the shark is one of the most popular labels Gigantic has ever released. People love it–they like to talk about which animal is going to win, whether the battle would go differently on land, how well the bear can swim, etc. How did you come up with the image for that label?
eagle vs. shark fight was the first and only thing I sketched. I got it approved and the final artwork isn’t much different than the original sketch. I’ve done a lot of this sort of subject matter, like jackalope vs. moose, cowboys vs. bears with guns, bears racing chickens in old-timey cars. Stuff like that.
Yeah, let’s face it, the shark has the huge advantage of being on her home-turf. I don’t think she’d do as well in the woods. But that’s not where the Catch 23 happens!
Which forgotten peril do you think still threatens humanity the most and why? a. killer bees b. hot lava c. Bermuda Triangle or d. something we’re forgetting but you see coming clear as day.
I wish all of my client work went this smoothly. When I heard the name “Catch 23” I immediately thought of a three-way fight. The bear vs.
Man those are some ‘80s perils! We should add: Be very careful to not get your rat-tail caught in your Thriller jacket zippers.
Around 1985 I was constantly joking around about killer bees with my friend Aaron. If we saw a dark cloud of exhaust, it was killer bees. A group of kids in striped shirts, killer bees! And then one day we were walking alone down the back alley behind my house when we heard what had to be somebody starting up their crappy old car. I picture a rusty VW Bug. It sounded so strange I couldn’t place it at first. I just looked at my friend Aaron like, “wha?” Aaron bug-eyed and deadpan serious, looked back to me and whispered, “killer bees!”. I freaked out. I thought for sure we were going to be stung to death or eaten and turned into Africanized honey... How do they kill you anyway? I also think we need to work on legislation to better control nunchucks. Anybody can just walk into a nunchuck show and walk out ten minutes later swinging them behind their back and through their crotch–with no waiting period!
It’s actual magic. Oh, and they get paid for it. I’ve always tried to make my art humorous, like bears with guns and whatnot. But I feel like the pivot that I made into illustrating FOR comedy is the seminal point in my career. A few years ago I made a proclamation (which is very rare for me). I told my wife over our anniversary steak dinner, “I want to be involved in the comedy scene. I want to make stuff for comedians, get to know some comics. Learn about writing jokes. Try it for myself!”. So now I do. It was part of a huge attitude shift. I decided that “funny” should come first and “art” should come second for me. Making people laugh ot just being involved in the comedy industry is the first priority. My toolbox [is] drawing, animating, coming up with my own characters, jokes, whatever.
Your work is often funny, and it looks like you’ve intentionally gotten more involved with doing work for comedians. What led you to that point? Comedians are pretty fucking amazing if you think about it. They go out on stage with nothing. You know, I rely on art supplies to do what I do. They do it with nothing–just a microphone and their own thoughts. And they produce a physical response from their audience. Or they don’t. Nobody can really pin down why sometimes people laugh and sometimes they don’t.
Sketch for Catch 23 label
It may have all started from jealousy. I was talking to a buddy in the Bay Area art scene. He mentioned that a mutual friend was doing artwork for some former SNL cast members and it felt it like a punch in the gut. It brought me back to high school, watching the cast members of Saturday Night Live hugging each other at the end of the episode. That was all I wanted in the whole world, to be an insider in the comedy world. (Oh, and to be a ninja.) The key is to not stay jealous for very long. I have to still be happy for my friend, and then go off and find my own funny collaborators. (Continued on following page)
(Ben Walker Interview, continued)
my head. That’s some cheap entertainment! I’d see monsters and weird creatures so vividly, like perfectly photographic images, and it wouldn’t matter how scary-looking they were. I just wished they could stay visible long enough so I could draw them. But they would last for a second and then something else would pop in. It becomes a life goal to get these visions out of my head and share them in a tangible way. It’s never going to look as cool as it was in your head, but you do your best. I’m not sure if this story is about something I love or hate about being an artist. I guess it’s just what it feels like to be a visual thinker. What kind of beer are you drinking these days? I don’t actually drink a lot of beer anymore. I love it, but it gives me the worst headaches. Just one or two beers will kill my next day. I can sometimes get away with drinking a Hefewei-
What are your favorite and least favorite things about being an artist? That’s a hard one. I love that I can come up with ideas for things I want to see exist in the world. Being an artist means realizing if you want to see these things in real life, you’re going to have to take on the project yourself. That feels pretty good. Coming into deep middle age, I can look around and see a nice body of work building up. Knowing something that’s tangible and from me alone will go on after I’m gone feels pretty good, too, especially now that I have a son. When I was a kid, I would lie in the dark and be endlessly fascinated by the things I’d see in
zen. I just moved with my wife and baby to the foothills above Sacramento, California. There’s a great new brewery in Auburn called Crooked Lane. The first time we walked in, I looked up and saw my own artwork on a T-shirt. It turns out I had designed their “Get Crooked” logo years ago before they even had a location. The logo is The Dude from Big Lebowski. They printed it on their Corn Holes. The folks at Crooked Lane have really helped us feel at home here in the woods. We go once a week for their Blood Orange Hefeweizen. More about Ben Walker: www.benwalkerart.com Instagram @ArtofBenWalker Instagram @CheapChillsFanClub cheapchills.threadless.com
Sodbuster Farms, Willamette Valley, OR
Brewing Fresh Hop Beer by Van Havig
August and September are the most
magical months in Oregon. Sure, the weather is great and you get that amazing late summer light, but I’m really talking about hop harvest. Actually, I’m talking about brewing fresh hop beers, which you enjoy in September and October every year. Here at Gigantic we plan out our fresh hop beer some time in early August. Well, really what we do is say, “Holy shit! It’s August! Hop harvest is going to start in two weeks!” Then we decide what hop we want to work with and call our friend Doug Whethers at Sodbuster Farms. He gives us an estimate of when he’ll be picking our preferred hops. For the last five years, that’s been Simcoe–a favorite of ours. Doug usually picks Simcoe right around the end of August or at the beginning of September. We never really know when we’re going to be brewing our fresh hop beer until one to three days before hand.
we use about 200 lbs of wet, just picked hops. Doug diverts them from the main conveyer to a scale, and we start filling bags–50 lbs at a time. At this point, the hops were cut down from the trellis about 15 minutes ago–that’s fresh. We give Doug and his crew some beer, throw the big cumbersome bags in the back of the truck, and head back to Portland. By the time we get back to the brewery, the hops are about an hour to an hour and a half “old”. For the first kettle fill, they will go in the hop back right away. Within three hours of them being cut from the trellis, they’ll be turned into the first kettle fill of delicious fresh hop beer. We’ll typically do one or two more kettle fills that day or the next. If we
When we get the go ahead from Doug, we schedule the brew. Typically, we start the brew day and about an hour later, someone jumps in the Gigantic Brewing truck and drives down to the Sodbuster Farms just north of Keizer, Oregon (which is just north of Salem, our state capital). It takes about an hour to get down to the farm. Then it takes about 20 minutes to find Doug. With any luck, he’s easy to find but he can be anywhere in the operation–the office, the picker, the kiln. Locating Doug is an important part of the whole experience.
have to store hops until the next day, it’s important to get them in the cooler right away since they start to degrade pretty fast. We always get them into the beer within 24 hours of harvest, ensuring that we capture all the hop goodness.
Once we take a look at the hops coming in and the hops in the kiln (this gives you a good chance to see how harvest is going and what the Simcoe looks like that year), we head over to the picker. For each 15 barrel kettle fill of beer,
Fermentation proceeds as normal, and we usually add a light dry hop addition to “top up” the aroma. Just three weeks after the hops are harvested, we start pouring our fresh hop beer in the taproom. It’s a great time of year.
Doug inspects the hops
The only way to know if experimental hops are good is to use them. The problem is, once brewers know they’re good, everyone wants them and they become scarce. Fortunately Hop 527, the star of Catch 23, is awesome and we have some! Enjoy the hop notes of mango and sublte strawberry, balanced with bready malt flavors.
ABV: 5.7% IBUs: 65
Color: GoldEN Ideal Serving Temp: 45 F Suggested Glassware: Pint Glass
Ingredients: Local Bull Run water, barley, hops, yeast Malts: Great Western pale, C45 Hops: Experimental Hop 527, Cascade, Nugget
CATCH 23 EXPERIMENTAL PALE ALE
LABEL ARTIST: BEN WALKER BAND: WOODEN INDIAN BURIAL GROUND SONG: Sad Mutations
Hear an exclusive track, “Sad Mutations” from Wooden Indian Burial Ground’s album How’s Your Favorite Dreamer at GiganticBrewing.com/ pages/catch23
BEN WALKER is a California
artist and illustrator who loves to make art and loves to make people laugh. Ben also loves making art for people who make people laugh. Ben has created show posters for comedians like Dana Gould and Maria Bamford, animation for the Adam Carolla Show, and his original portraits of comedians hang in San Francisco’s legendary Cobb’s Comedy Club. Check out Ben’s “Cheap Chills” Instagram feed for people who like old scary movies and monsters.
www.benwalkerart.com Instagram @ArtofBenWalker Instagram @CheapChillsFanClub cheapchills.threadless.com
WOODEN INDIAN BURIAL GROUND
In their current state of designed perpetual flux, WIBG has found some serious footing. Since 2012 Justin Fowler, Dan Galucki and crew have consistently churned out shimmering, spasmodic psych rock of an exceptional degree. Many tours across the United States and Europe with the likes of FUZZ, Built to Spill and countless other groups of questionable individuals have left WIBG wise, weathered and thankful for the opportunity to shred. With tipped toes and bloody hands WIBG creates something more than songs. Their singular style is an organic cacophony of scattered, sporadic metallic sway and lascivious throbbing that will leave you wiggling, writhing and shaking your toosh into the wee hours of the morning. The New York Times described them as embracing “1960s garage psychedelia to particularly molten effect.” woodenindianburialground.bandcamp.com Facebook @wibgwibg
The original name of Catch 23 was “Angry Neighbor”. That name was inspired by the G.B.H. song “Drugs Party in 526”. Since Catch 23 uses experimental hop 527, we imagined the “angry neighbor” of the party in apartment 526. Seeing the name as not fitting a bottle release, we changed the name to Catch 23, also the name of a G.B.H. song. Ben Walker’s vision of just what a Catch 23 would be–a shark fighting an eagle fighting a bear–pulled everything together.
what is
HOP SELECTION ? Hops aren’t like
other crops. You don’t just put them in the ground and harvest them when they look ripe. You can’t plant them anywhere and expect a good high quality yield with the proper aroma. You can’t even guarantee that if you do everything right they’ll end up as top quality hops. So how do we at Gigantic make sure we get the best hops? The short answer involves one word that means something very specific in the brewery world–Selection. The long answer starts with farmers. The first requirement of good hops is that they be grown in the right place. Hops, like wine grapes, have a sort of terroir. Centennial hops from Oregon may be less “punchy” than those grown in the hotter Yakima Valley, and Crystal hops may be more floral and pleasant if grown in Oregon rather than in Washington. So when we choose the hops we want to use, we first have to pay attention to where they are grown. The farmer’s job continues in making sure the hops have the right nutrients, the correct amount of water, and the right care in the fields to combat disease and pests. At harvest, the farmer determines when to pick each field, balancing the concerns of ripeness, aroma quality, pest pressure, and picker and kiln scheduling. Here, the Ben and Van select hops
experience of the grower matters enormously, and it’s one area in which Pacific Northwest farmers, who have been growing hops for generations, have a distinct advantage. Finally, the farmer needs to dry the hops correctly–a tricky balance to preserve the hop oils properly. Finally, brewers from around the country congregate in Yakima, Washington every September to be able to see and smell the hops before buying them–a process known to brewers simply as “selection.” We’re lucky at Gigantic because we’ve been going to selection for 18 years. At this point, we know which farms grow certain varieties well, which hops should be picked early or late, and how any particular hop should smell for it to have really good brewing characteristics. Selection starts with dried, whole flower samples of a hop variety. If we’re selecting the Simcoe hops for the year, we’ll typically be presented with samples from 5 or 6 different lots. These will typically come from 3 to 6 farms, and have a range of pick dates. We’ll first look to see if the color is good, for signs of mildew or insect damage, and for any seed content. We then take a small handful of the hops and rub them vigorously, breaking the lupulin glands (where the hop oils are) and warming them up to release aromas. It’s all about how it smells at that point. Aromas of onion, garlic, burnt rubber, leather, tobacco or machine oil are generally bad (but not always). Nice, bright, punchy citrus, fruit and floral aromas are good. We know what we’re looking for and are always trying to find a hop lot that comes close to the platonic ideal of the variety under selection. At the end of it all, we end up with good quality hops that will remain the same throughout the year. It’s really at the heart of what we do at Gigantic. We love hops, we love selecting them, we love brewing with them, and we love drinking hoppy beers.
Hop bales
You know you’re in Yakima whe you find yourself having a beer at the Sports Center
#GiganticBrewing