Lee Margolin of Harrison is the man behind Maine’s newest brewery: Pennesseewassee Brewing, a small-batch operation that runs out of a converted in-law apartment at his home.

The Lewiston native has been brewing as a hobby for more than 20 years and has worked in neuroscience for most of his life. He still works in that field as a consultant, and as a lamprey sniggler, catching lampreys and selling them to neuroscience researchers. His beer, Pennesseewassee Pale Ale, was released on Friday and will be available in stores and pubs in the Oxford Hills area in December.

Name: Lee Margolin

Age: 58

Occupation: Brewer, lamprey sniggler (look it up), neuroscience consultant.

How did you become interested in beer and brewing? While I was a graduate student in the ’80s in the Boston area, new microbreweries and brew pubs were opening all over. A fellow student and I thought it would be fun to try and we split the cost of a home brewing setup. The first batch came out well and I’ve stuck with it ever since.

How do you describe your beer to people? Pennesseewassee Pale Ale is a naturally carbonated, unfiltered Americanized version of an English pale ale. It is moderate in alcohol (4.5%) and moderately hopped with a crisp but not overpowering finish. It is a good place to start for someone who is interested in branching out from the more commonplace American lagers.

What are your long-term plans for the brewery? The Pennesseewassee Brewing Company (PBC) was established to create a local/regional craft brewing identity for the Oxford Hills/western foothills area, akin to how Lewiston-Auburn has Baxter and Gritty’s, the Lake Region has Bray’s and ski country has Sunday River Brewing. I intend to grow PBC organically; that is, its growth will be linked to its support from consumers in the surrounding communities. I intend to offer more styles of ale as time goes on. We’ll just have to see how it goes.

Now that you’re brewing professionally, will you still be home brewing on the side? Yes, it will become the “laboratory” for new offerings from PBC.

How did you get started catching lampreys? My graduate work involved studying behavioral recovery associated with spinal cord regeneration, using the sea lamprey as the experimental model. My professor was probably the only researcher in this field who caught his own lamprey and I learned from him. Every year, all the lamprey neurobiologists gather for a dinner while attending the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting. While attending in 1991 in St. Louis, I was cornered by a researcher from the University of Iowa who pleaded with me to rent/borrow/steal my professor’s equipment and catch some lamprey for him as he had none at the time. “I’ll even pay you for them!” And so the Acme Lamprey Company was born.

How do researchers use them? In addition to the neuro-related issues like spinal cord regeneration, the genesis and coordination of motor behavior, as well as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease research, there are folks who use the lamprey for eye development, immunological, reproductive and excretory research.

How do you catch them? Are they aggressive? I use a backpack electro-fishing unit, the same used by state fisheries agencies. I hold scientific collection permits in Maine and Massachusetts. The life stages that I collect are found in freshwater streams that empty into the Atlantic (think salmon: breed and develop in freshwater but adults live in the ocean). At that point in their lives, they are buried in the stream bed. The electricity (from the backpack unit) gets them out of their burrows and when they attempt to swim away, the electricity momentarily paralyzes them and we net them. Despite their appearance, they are not aggressive at all; even the adults ignore humans pretty much.