Lukáš Jirka: from Czech pharma executive to craft brewer

Lukáš Jirka spent almost twenty years in the pharmaceutical business, working his way up to run a company that was eventually bought by an international group — and then, to everyone's surprise, switched careers altogether: today he brews craft beer and is building his own brewery near Pardubice, while his wife runs an artisan bakery recognised as one of the best in the country.

The story began with a medical degree: Jirka graduated at a time when Czechia had a glut of doctors and went to work as a sales rep for an American pharmaceutical company. Five years later, having risen to head marketing and sales for one of its specialised drugs, he realised that inside a giant corporation he would always be just a cog in the machine.

His chance to change everything came in the form of a small Hradec Králové firm that packaged and repackaged medicines. Jirka took charge of it and bet on generics — copies of drugs whose patents had expired. The company grew into one of the three biggest players on the sleeping-pill market, developed its own drug that was later bought out by the Dr. Max pharmacy chain, and expanded into Poland, the Baltic states, Slovakia and Hungary.

“Pharma is a game played for big money,” Jirka recalls. “You sign a supply contract, and then it isn't fulfilled. And suddenly that's five million crowns. A large company can shrug that off, but it can knock a small business off its feet.” In 2019, his brand and its entire portfolio were bought by a Spanish pharmaceutical group. Jirka stayed on for a while as director of the Czech branch, but a couple of years later he parted ways with the new owner and left the company.

While still working in pharma, he had taken to walking home to clear his head of mounting problems. It was on one of those walks that he stumbled across a craft beer pub and discovered a world of beer beyond the ordinary lager. Tasting his way through different styles and learning how small breweries worked, he caught the bug for a place of his own — and when the former Na jedno pub space came free in Hradec Králové, he decided to sign the lease. The deal was done on a Monday; by Friday every pub in the country had shut because of the Covid pandemic, and he spent a year paying rent on an empty space.

Meanwhile, another business was taking shape at home. While Jirka was driving his three sons to school in Prague, his wife, Michaela Jirková, fell in love with bread from small artisan bakeries and started baking it herself, then decided to open her own bakery in a building belonging to her parents — in a hotel on Velké náměstí in Hradec Králové.

Jirka himself was initially sceptical about his wife's idea, pointing out that the bakery's equipment alone cost around five million crowns just to get started. But it turned out exactly the other way round: while his pub stood empty under Covid restrictions, the Pod Věží bakery grew in popularity, and its signature loaves — Kardinál and Augustýn — won over customers. This year the bakery won a competition for the best Czech sandwich, and Jirka himself is now building his own brewery, having finally traded his pharma suit for a brewer's apron.