diff --git a/Gemfile b/Gemfile
index a3352b8923cf0946e84bdc62ddd9a3dcce6231cb..35f9b081fdf1a508b75140f6c2830951629d27a4 100644
--- a/Gemfile
+++ b/Gemfile
@@ -412,6 +412,10 @@ end
 
 # Gitaly GRPC client
 gem 'gitaly-proto', '~> 0.88.0', require: 'gitaly'
+# Explicitly lock grpc as we know 1.9 is bad
+# 1.10 is still being tested. See gitlab-org/gitaly#1059
+gem 'grpc', '~> 1.8.3'
+
 # Locked until https://github.com/google/protobuf/issues/4210 is closed
 gem 'google-protobuf', '= 3.5.1'
 
diff --git a/Gemfile.lock b/Gemfile.lock
index a5c94a9e0742cc76214b42e756f0c2334ddd8772..010d4f7b56ac3637c17b8b0dd166a32354a789e3 100644
--- a/Gemfile.lock
+++ b/Gemfile.lock
@@ -1073,6 +1073,7 @@ DEPENDENCIES
   grape-entity (~> 0.6.0)
   grape-route-helpers (~> 2.1.0)
   grape_logging (~> 1.7)
+  grpc (~> 1.8.3)
   haml_lint (~> 0.26.0)
   hamlit (~> 2.6.1)
   hashie-forbidden_attributes