Jax Brewing Company

After visiting Jacksonville, Florida, in 1909, he determined the city would be a good location for a new brewery.

He founded the enterprise with assistance from his in-laws, the Schorr family of the Schorr-Kolkschneider Brewing Company, and his good friend Jacob Bongner.

The partners broke ground on the brewery building on West 16th Street on June 9, 1913.

[5] In 1933, in expectation of prohibition's repeal through the Twenty-first Amendment, Ostner, then the company's president following Bongner's death in 1924, prepared to resume brewing.

In 1935, the company entered into a legal dispute over the Jax Beer trademark with the Jackson Brewing Company in New Orleans; this was resolved with a compromise giving Jacksonville Brewing exclusive rights to sell Jax Beer in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.