A FUNDRAISING campaign at a Wee County brewery has netted thousands of pounds for NHS health heroes.

The team at the family-owned Harviestoun Brewery completed their second Schiehallion fundraising challenge with the coronavirus restrictions in place.

While they were unable to climb the actual Munro, which named one of the brewery's flagship lagers, participants bagged a Schiehallion worth of stairs to emulate scaling the 1,083metres they conquered last year.

They smashed their fundraising target, collecting nearly £2,700 for NHS Charities Together.

The challenge started last year when it supported Euan's Guide, a charity supporting disabled people to find great places to go – a cause close to the heart of the brewery.

And due to the success of the first climb, the team thought it would be great to make it an annual occasion.

This year's #aMunroOfStairs challenge saw those taking part climb up and down a flight of stairs 361 times, approximating the amount of climbing required to scale the actual Munro.

Kevin Giudici, from Harviestoun Brewery, told the Advertiser: “Like most businesses a number of people are either working from home or on furlough leave so we aren’t connecting in the usual way.

“This was a good opportunity to connect through social media to everyone else in the brewery.

“It’s probably fair to say we all found climbing 361 sets of stairs harder than we thought, though it was worth it in the end.”

Having smashed their target with the climb over the long weekend of May 1 to 3, the team was buzzing and wanted to give a nod of appreciation to all those who donated so generously.

Kevin added: “It is a difficult time financially for people just now so we weren’t sure how this would go, so to have raised double our target is amazing.

“We do really want to say a huge thank you to all those that took part in the challenge and everyone who supported us with their generous donations.

“We are all at home for long periods just now and we’re told that this is the way to help the cause and to protect the NHS but you don’t always feel that sitting on the couch so this was a great way to make a small contribution to those in the NHS doing such great work just now.”