It is an an amazing event, no doubt. Everything about it. This might seem like an odd opinion, but I wish it was not on the holiday weekend. The traffic coming back from Maine to MA on that Monday can be ferocious, some of the worst holiday traffic I have ever experienced. I spoke to someone from Oxbow who told me they had an internal debate about switching the event back to a non-holiday October weekend, but obviously that didn’t happen. The anti-holiday weekend sentiment was that since the holiday weekend is already a good weekend for business, why not keep the brewery open normally, get the business, and do GftW on a normally slower weekend. This way they get the holiday weekend business and get to do the event too. Oh well, not to be.
We typically drive back that day so luckily haven’t experienced the traffic. I will say since they’ve stuck to that holiday weekend, the weather has been great. I remember a few years were either wet and humid or borderline freezing temps.
I remember the humid rainy year specifically. The other times we went we had absolutely glorious fall weather, the kind of weather that typifies the best days of the season.
Although have gone for years, (several times on an earlier Oct. weekend) but more recently it conflicts with my aging mom's birthday and the holiday weekend for the last several years. Have decided to skip it this year in favor of Schilling's Oktoberfest and Funk on the Water at Foam - both in Sept.
