Today is a good day to remember Henry Bausch, the pioneer brewer of Santa Cruz, California, who was born in 1827 in Hesse Darmstadt, Germany.

Bausch emigrated to America in 1849 and obtained a position as a laborer in Yost's Brewery in Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania.  A few years later he answered the call of the Gold Rush and left for California.  He arrived in Santa Cruz in 1853 having walked over the mountain trail from San Francisco.  Soon after he partnered with George Adams to open the first brewery in the city, in the Villa de Branciforte.

He was married twice, first to Hannah (Died Nov. 20, 1878), with whom he had six children, and finally to a woman named Annie, who, in prototypical California fashion, was about 27 years his junior.

In 1867 George Adams left the partnership to open his own brewery in Watsonville and Bausch continued the Santa Cruz firm on his own, leasing the brewery's sample room to Jurgen Moeller and Matg. (Mathias?) Haug.

In 1872 Bausch commenced building a new brewery, L shaped, on the corner of Broadway and Soquel Road.  Adjacent to the brewery he set up a park called the Pleasure Gardens which opened on May 1st of that year.  The Gardens had a picnic grounds, a dancing pavilion, "bowling alleys, swings and other appliances".  The Gardens would become a favorite place to celebrate the 4th of July.  In a few years the City's July 4th parades would end there in "a grand jollification" and "reign of pandemonium", according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel.  The brewery itself opened in October of 1874, after which the old facility in Branciforte was shut down.  The new brewery's name was officially the Santa Cruz Brewery but eventually the firm became known as the Vienna Brewery due to the popularity of its flagship brand; Vienna Beer. The Pleasure Gardens were renamed the Vienna Gardens in 1881. 

Bausch ran the brewery for 10 years and retired in February of 1884.  He leased the brewhouse to Beck & Koehn, the proprietors of the Pacific Brewery.  Later that year, on November 21, Henry Bausch died of rheumatism.  The Vienna stayed in the family, run by his son George Henry and son-in-law Louis L. Rogge.  They managed it for another two decades until Rogge died at age 43, on the 15th of August, 1904.  When George died on December 11 of that year his unexpected passing at the age of 44 set off a three-year legal struggle for ownership of the brewery which culminated with its forced sale in December of 1907.  And that was the end of that.

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Associated Breweries