From Home Brew to 6,000 Hectoliters: Fiona MacEachern on Beer, Grit and Building a Business That's Truly Yours

In this episode of Scale HER Up, I'm joined by Fiona MacEachern, Managing Director of Loch Lomond Brewery and Levenbank Distillery — a business she started from scratch with her husband in 2011, home brewing for fun, and has grown into a 15-strong team producing 6,000 hectoliters of beer a year, alongside gin, vodka, rum and their own whiskey barrels.

This is one of those conversations that stays with you. Fiona is honest, direct and refreshingly no-nonsense — about what it really takes to build a business from nothing, what happened when she faced cancer treatment while running the company, and why not doing something is always worse than trying and failing.

We cover:

- How Loch Lomond Brewery started from home brewing and became a brewery, distillery and taproom

- Growing from one employee to 15 — and why building trust takes time

- Why Fiona gave up a career as a police officer to start the business (and what finally pushed her over the edge)

- Working with her husband and the boundaries that have kept the marriage intact for 25 years

- Cash flow as the constant challenge — and how crowdfunding raised £250,000 to fund their expansion

- Managing the business through cancer treatment — and why coming to work was her support network

- What it's like to be a woman in the brewing industry

- The natural progression from beer to spirits — and how selling whiskey barrels helped fund the distillery

- Her honest, respectful take on BrewDog and what they did for the Scottish brewing industry

- What's next for Loch Lomond Brewery and Levenbank Distillery

**Quote of the episode:** *"If you do it and fail, that's a good thing. Not doing it is not a good thing — because you've never achieved your full potential."* — Fiona MacEachern

If you're thinking about starting something, scaling something, or just wondering whether all the hard work is worth it — this episode will remind you that it is.