Gigantic Brewing previews Fractal Universe Hazy IPA with Alora, Nelson Sauvin, Citra

Gigantic Brewing’s Fractal Universe Hazy IPA reads like a deliberate swing, not another soft-focus seasonal. The Portland brewery built the beer around Alora, Nelson Sauvin, and Citra, and that combination points to a hazy with real hop personality: peach, apricot, sweet melon, yuzu, gooseberry, grape, and bright citrus, all sitting inside a 7.2% frame that should feel substantial without tipping into double-IPA territory.

That hop bill is the part that gives Fractal Universe its edge. Alora is an aroma hop available exclusively from Hopsteiner, with reported alpha acids of 7% to 10% and total oils at 0.8% to 1.5%. Hopsteiner’s flavor notes, peach, apricot, sweet melon, and yuzu fruit, suggest a softer, more layered tropical profile than the blunt mango-candy haze that dominates a lot of shelves. Nelson Sauvin pushes the beer in a different direction. New Zealand Hops says the variety was developed by New Zealand’s Plant & Food Research and released in 2000, and describes it as carrying distinctive New World white wine characters and gooseberry notes. Freestyle Hops adds bright grape, complex fruit aromas, and background dankness. With Citra in the mix, the finish should still have the citrus snap that keeps the beer anchored as an IPA rather than a fruit smoothie.

That matters because Gigantic has spent years making loud packaging and distinctive beer part of its identity. Gigantic Brewing Company says it is a small craft brewery in Portland, Oregon, founded in 2012 by Ben Love and Van Havig. Its core IPA language is blunt, “Never Give An Inch,” and that fits a release like this one: bold aromatics, a named hop bill, and enough structure to give the beer some backbone. Gigantic also says every label is designed by a different artist and offered for a limited time, so the can is part of the draw, not just the liquid inside it.

The brewery’s current footprint makes the release even more focused. Gigantic now lists two Portland locations, at 5224 SE 26th Ave and 6935 NE Glisan, while its Hawthorne pub page says that location is closed. The shift into 16-ounce cans, after years of bottling, also keeps Fractal Universe in the format most hazy IPA drinkers expect now. In a crowded category full of lookalike juice bombs, this one stands out because the hop choices actually say something. Fractal Universe looks like the kind of hazy worth chasing for the hop character first and the label art second.