Topher Robakiewicz has a headache. But that doesn’t stop him from ordering a Black Watch Stout. Wearing a sea captain’s hat, Robakiewicz settles in his bar stool at John Harvard’s Brew House in Cambridge, in front of the tall anonymous taps of the bar, ready to tweak his taste buds. Though he is a trained psychologist who works with autistic children, his favorite thing to analyze is beer; he takes mental notes with each sip. He drinks a lot of beer. He tastes it. He smells it. And he examines its color.

A self-made brewer, Robakiewicz can stir the cauldron alongside the best of them at John Harvard’s. But don't expect to find his beers on tap at your local pub -- he brews them just for himself, his roommates, and the occasional blowout.

The 26-year-old Detroit native came of drinking age in an area of Michigan with four breweries nearby. Not content to sit on his passions, the self-proclaimed adventurer decided to start brewing on his own.

“I enjoyed the culture of beer, and it was only exemplified when I traveled to Europe,” he says.

Greatly influenced by his fact-finding missions in Belgium and Germany, Robakiewicz started with a home brewing kit. He figured out what works and what doesn’t and learned to adjust his concoctions to create the flavor he is craving at the moment, or the flavor he thinks he’ll be craving in a month or two when the beer is done.

“It’s like a painter who paints something and then steps back and realizes they don’t like that shade of blue,” he says.

Though time consuming, Robakiewicz says it’s a simple process. The key is to know your ingredients and how they react to each other. Anyone can brew beer, he says. But to make a great beer, “you have to have an eccentric mind.” Not to mention a love for the process and the result.

“I like to brew for the same reason a cook likes to cook, a painter likes to paint, a sculptor likes to sculpt,” he says.

Three years after his first brew experiment, he now has a waiting list of tasters and the occasional brew party at his Brighton apartment, also known as the Egremont Lean-To Tavern. In mid-April, he has planned an event entitled “Missin’ the Michigan Summer Blues Line Up,” in honor of his home state’s yeasty passions. On tap will be two beers cloned from the summer selection at the Kalamazoo Brewing Company, in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Though his tastes lean towards pale ales, Robakiewicz is as likely to make a rich stout as a Trappist ale. His recent “birthday brew” was a Belgian specialty ale, inspired by the flavor of a specific yeast strain and dark flavored malt. He added spices and fruit –cardamom, coriander, and orange peel – to complement the flavor.

Robakiewicz has lived in Boston for a year and a half and is no stranger to the local music and bar scene. You can often find him on Wednesday nights at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge for poetry slams or at Harpers Ferry in Allston catching a band he just heard of. But he says he misses his Michigan brews– they have that “ooh factor”– which he finds more flavorful than New England brews.

On a visit one night to Bukowski’s Tavern in Cambridge, Robakiewicz almost fell off his bar stool when he saw they had Founders IPA – a Michigan beer – on tap. It was the first time he found it on tap anywhere in Boston. He called everyone he knew.

Robakiewicz says he’s not a good planner. He doesn’t make checklists. There are no to-dos in his life. A dig in Costa Rica may be in his future or a spontaneous weekend trip to Spain. He may do his taxes on time, but don’t ask him to figure out ahead of time what brew he’s going to invent next week. That is between him and his beer god.

Samantha Conti can be reached at sconti@theoysteronline.com

03/29/2006   |   Permalink