01/23/2026
Needless to say, the Big Axe Craft Beer Festival has been a huge success year after year. Over the past seven years, we’ve welcomed thousands of attendees and dozens of craft vendors from across the country, while proudly donating tens of thousands of dollars to local charities.
After much thought and consideration, the organizing committee has made the difficult decision to put the festival as we know it on pause for one year to re-evaluate.
Our festival has become part of many people’s summer traditions, welcoming people from all over to our hometown of Nackawic, New Brunswick. Over the years, we’ve come together with our incredible sponsors, volunteers, vendors, and musicians to put on one of the biggest outdoor craft beer festivals in the region. And we couldn’t have done it without you. To our widespread community of craft beer festival enthusiasts…. THANK YOU!
We are deeply grateful for the community we’ve built over the years, and it simply wouldn’t be the success it is without your continued support.
With all of this in mind, we’d like to share a bit more about how we arrived at this decision.
We understand how challenging it has become for our vendors to commit to events during the busiest month of the year, and we truly appreciate the staffing challenges many are facing, as well as our ongoing struggle to find enough volunteers. Hosting an event of this scale also comes with significant costs, and given the current landscape, we feel it’s best to take the next year to thoughtfully decide where we go from here.
This pause gives us the opportunity to explore changes! Whether that means adjusting the time of year, changing the venue, or both - and to find ways to freshen things up while staying true to our mission. That mission remains the same: bringing the heart and soul of the local craft industry to the people who support it, uplifting our surrounding community, and putting on a truly Kick Axe event.
It’s important to note that planning an event of this size is no small task, especially with a committee of just three people who all work full time elsewhere. We are incredibly proud of what we’ve built together and excited about what the future holds.
And don’t worry, we’ve still got events brewing in the meantime.
If you’d like to be the first to know about upcoming events, leave us your email to join our mailing list, or send us a message at [email protected] .You’ll receive exclusive early access to what we have planned for 2026, including first access to tickets.
We also welcome your ideas. Please feel free to share suggestions or reach out if you’re interested in volunteering or joining our festival committee.
Finally, we’d like to extend a heartfelt thank you to our many sponsors for making this festival such a blast and for helping make it a part of Tourism NB.
With gratitude,
Big Axe Festival Organizing Committee
