Business in Czechia almost caused the fall of the Zwettler family brewery
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Karl Schwarz was born on 4 February 1968 in the small town of Zwettl in Lower Austria which was at that time about thirty kilometres away from the Iron Curtain. His father Karl Schwarz senior owned the family brewery Zwettler from 1959. He led his son to run the business as well. After the fall of the communist regime, the witness´s father decided in the early 1990s that he wanted to enter the Czechoslovak brewery market and buy Jihlava Ježek Brewery in the voucher privatization. However, the business in Czechoslovakia / the Czech Republic was not very successful which Karl Schwarz Jr. was well aware of and told his father that he would only take over the family brewery if he gave up the business in Jihlava. This is what happened. In the second half of the 1990s, the Austrian owner sold the Ježek brewery to a Belgian company and Karl Schwarz Jr. took over the management of the family brewery in Zwettl from his father in 1996. He is still in charge of the company today (2022).
