Photos: Gigantic night at Pint Defiance in Tacoma

By Ron Swarner on January 29, 2015

Years and years and years from now, when people from the future or aliens or whatever are sifting through the artifacts of our culture, will they ever, ever find anything as cool as this: A Gigantic brewery. OK, it's actually called Gigantic Brewing Company, and, well, gigantic is the opposite  of what founders Ben Love and Van Havig have in mind for the Portland, Oregon brewery. The vow to stay small, focus on brewing exceptional beer rather than mass produce. Veterans of the Oregon brewing community (Love has brewed for 10 years, Havig for 20), the two concentrate on two things: a really freakin delicious IPA and three-month run seasonals, including their Saboteur Baltic Porter, Ginormous Imperial IPA and 2014 MASSIVE! BarleyWine. The Porter is exceptional, with a rich chocolate and roasted taste finishing with a smooth alcoholic warmth. Heavily hopped, the delicious MASSIVE! uses only British Halcyon pale malt, which is boiled for eight hours, giving the beer a deep ruby color and rich malt flavor.

Today, Gigantic Brewing releases its Catch 23 Experimental Pale Ale made with the experimental 527 hop. You'll catch tropical mango hoppiness with every sip. Mick Wilcox, brand manager with Click Wholesale Distributing, says the Catch 23 is the best pale ale he's tasted in a long time.

Ben Love went big last night at Pint Defiance Specialty Beers and Taproom, pouring his beers and chatting up his principles. The night was so huge my neck hurts today. ...