Kiwi Jr. & Ocelot Brewing Form a Combustible Alliance

Virginia’s Ocelot Brewing has once again found a way to bring together two worlds that increasingly overlap in the modern craft beer scene: independent brewing and independent music. The Dulles brewery has built an impressive reputation for collaborations with musicians, record labels and music venues, and its latest release may be one of its most musically charged beers yet.

Blowin’ Up is a collaboration between Ocelot Brewing and Toronto indie-rock band Kiwi Jr., arriving ahead of the band’s fourth studio album of the same name. Rather than simply putting a band name on a can, Ocelot has constructed a beer that reflects Kiwi Jr.’s personality, influences and history, creating a dry-hopped pilsner with a firm bitterness and an unusually hop-forward profile for the style.

At 4.8% ABV, Blowin’ Up combines traditional German malt character with American and Michigan-grown hops, including Chinook, Cascade and Saaz. Two months of tank maturation gives the lager plenty of time to develop before its release, while the combination of grapefruit peel, noble spice, resin and pine promises a pilsner that should appeal to both traditional lager drinkers and fans of more aggressively hopped craft beer.

Here’s what Ocelot Brewing and Kiwi Jr. have created with Blowin’ Up:

Could you believe it? Today, Virginia’s Ocelot Brewing lights the fuse on Blowin’ Up, an explosively hoppy pilsner assembled with Kiwi Jr. This collaboration lager precedes the arrival of the Toronto quartet’s long-awaited fourth LP – and first for the storied K Records – Blowin’ Up.

With three full lengths in less than four years, Kiwi Jr. spent the beginning of the decade quickly and firmly establishing itself as a leading purveyor of whip-smart, whirling indie rock. But the band travelled a circuitous path to Blowin’ Up, workshopping songs for months on end, refining and editing ideas over years, then finally recording them live with producer Graham Walsh at Detroit’s High Bias in early 2025. The resulting album is sprawling in sound and scope – a collection of ten songs that feels classically Kiwi Jr. while also expanding our conception of what that means.

Blowin’ Up (the beer) is similarly a testament to patient resolve. Brewed in June utilizing entirely premium Weyermann grains – primarily the German institution’s subtle pilsner malt, with a dash of its Barke Vienna for a golden hue – the lager was given a generous two months of tank time to mature. Chinook hops were employed several times during the boil, imbuing the beer with a piney essence that nods to the Canadian IPAs that sustained the band in its earliest days. The 4.8% lager’s dry hop, meanwhile, is “Pure Michigan”: Cascade and Saaz, both grown in the glacier-swept soil of the Great Lakes State and combining here to form a bouquet of grapefruit peel, noble spice, resin, and more pine. There’s a firm bitterness to Blowin’ Up, too. Think of it as our tribute to singer-guitarist Jeremy Gaudet’s oft-biting commentary on modernity’s hijinks.

The can’s greyscale-and-red label features a rendering of the TNT-emblazoned bass drum that eagle eyes can spot in Laura-Lynn Petrick’s photography for the cover of Blowin’ Up, in addition to various singles. Handle accordingly.

To paraphrase Gaudet: It was good luck brought us somewhere, so good luck, goodbye, and amen.

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Blowin’ Up is out this Friday via K Records. Kiwi Jr. plays release shows in Philadelphia and New York City the following weekend. The band returns to DC for a concert at Pearl Street Warehouse on Saturday, January 9.

Blowin’ Up is available now at Ocelot, with limited distribution to follow. The dry-hopped pilsner follows previous collaborations with Crooked Fingers, Momma, Protomartyr, Superchunk, Palehound, Bon Iver, Sheer Mag, Jens Lekman, The Clientele, Mary Timony, Polvo, The Fiery Furnaces, Friendship, Lily Seabird, The Autumn Defense, Fudgeded Up, of Montreal, Bad Moves, Slumberland Records, Merge Records, Dead Oceans, Songbyrd Music House, and Superchunk again. Founded by Adrien and Laura Widman in spring 2015, the brewery is located in Dulles, Virginia. 

See More Ocelot Brewing News on mybeerbuzz.com:
“Ocelot Brewing has built an impressive history at the intersection of craft beer and independent music, and Blowin’ Up fits perfectly into that tradition. MyBeerBuzz.com has previously covered Ocelot’s collaborations with Songbyrd Music House on Touch of Gold, along with the brewery’s collaborations with artists including The Autumn Defense, Polvo, Momma, Jens Lekman, Bon Iver, Bad Moves and others. Explore the complete Ocelot Brewing archive on MyBeerBuzz.com for more stories about this uniquely music-driven Virginia brewery and its growing catalog of creative craft beer collaborations.”

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