Brew Cruz hits brakes after decade of Santa Cruz County craft brewing tours

In November 2013, Annie Wolff Pautsch was sitting at the newly opened Discretion Brewery in Soquel trying to work on her résumé, having recently moved from San Francisco to Santa Cruz and in need of a new job. A conversation with the bartender helped spark the idea for what would become Brew Cruz, a curated tour of local breweries inspired by a similar concept Wolff Pautsch had experienced in Boulder, Colorado. Inspired, she put the wheels in motion and started looking for a vehicle, eventually finding a 1989 school bus she renovated and named Betty Jane in honor of her grandmother. By July 2014, Brew Cruz had hit the streets. 

Now, after 10 years and close to 2,000 tours, the ride is over.

“I felt like I knew when a good thing had to come to an end, at least in the care of me,” Wolff Pautsch said of the decision to cease operations. “Do I think something like Brew Cruz should and will continue here? Absolutely.”

It just won’t be run by Wolff Pautsch, who is ready for her next adventure. 

“I already have a couple of ideas tumbling around in my brain that I’d like to see happen in Santa Cruz,” she said.

Since starting the business, she’s gotten married and had twins, made countless friendships and earned near-iconic status as the driver behind her giant green-and-white bus. She added a second vehicle, a 1964 Volkswagen bus named Slowboy, in 2018, and hired additional drivers to meet the demand. 

She launched the Santa Cruz Beer Passport, put on her own beer festival, held an annual Halloween “Boo Cruz” tour of the county’s most haunted locations and collaborated with local band Coffis Brothers on a custom tour. She partnered with The Dream Inn in Santa Cruz to conduct public (non-chartered) brewery tours. She’s helped groups celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, taken office colleagues on unique team-building events and driven tours for countless other events. Meeting new people, sharing in those celebrations and fostering close ties with the larger Santa Cruz County community are what Wolff Pautsch has valued most from the Brew Cruz experience. 

“There’ve been so many happy moments on the bus. Just seeing people laughing and having fun together has been amazing,” she said. “Working as a small business owner in this community is intoxicating.” 

She was looking to expand with a third vehicle and more tours in South County when the pandemic hit, pausing tours for close to two years. In 2021, the business faced another setback when Wolff Pautsch learned Betty Jane’s engine no longer complied with the state’s new diesel regulation laws and would have to be taken off the road. Installing a new, energy-efficient engine wasn’t feasible, but a low-usage option allowed her to continue operating the vehicle as long as she drove it less than 1,000 miles a year. Pre-COVID, when she was easily doing as many as five tours a week, that wouldn’t have been possible, but post-pandemic, things had changed. Many of the breweries Wolff Pautsch first worked with had since closed, and she was seeing a shift in demand, with brewery tours comprising only about half her business. Instead, more customers were hiring her for things like driving the wedding party from the ceremony site to reception, or chauffeuring teens around for a birthday party. 

Fighting to find a way to get her bus back on the road amid the new restrictions took a major toll that she said “kind of took the wind out of my sails.” Still, the decision to sunset the business wasn’t taken lightly; it took months of heartfelt consideration as she weighed the pros and cons before settling on what she felt was best for herself, her family and the business. 

“I think when your focus starts to shift, you have to lean into that,” she said. 

While Brew Cruz might be done, Wolff Pautsch will remain a strong supporter of the local craft brew community. And there’s still potential for Betty Jane to ride again in a different capacity; Wolff Pautsch is keeping Slowboy, but will put the school bus up for sale. 

“The energy in that bus is so wonderful,” she said. “I’m hoping to see the bus go on aiding [the community] in some other way.”  

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