First post

Welcome to this beer blog. My name is Shawn, you might know me as pintbypint, a handle I used on various beer websites. I'm a beer geek. I love trying new beers. My hobby started in the mid 90s in Ontario, when I began sampling various micro brews and finding them much superior to the mainstream beers I was drinking. Some classics at the time were Upper Canada, Wellington, Brick and Alqonquin. From there, I found a copy of Michael Jackson's Beer Companion at the local library, and also a copy of Charlie Papazians Joy of Homebrewing. I read both cover to cover hundreds of times and got the beer bug. From there I started trying every and any beer I could get my hands on. Early eye opening beers for me were Unibroue Maudite, Hart's Dragon's Breath Pale Ale, Formosa Springs Bock, Guinness (I was facinated by the widget!), Newcastle Brown Ale, Waterloo Dark, and a few others (Now I realize some of those beers aren't that great, but if it weren't for the gateway beers I wouldn't be where I am today). I visited the LCBO often to see if any new strange beers arrived and was rewarded by finding brews such as Schultheiss Berliner Weisse, Hennepin, Orval, Chimay Red, Ommegang, Xingu, Trompe La Mort and others (looking back I can't believe how lucky I was to find some of these brews, sadly the LCBO has never stocked most of them again). One day while surfing on the net I found the Oxford Bottled Beer Guide which was the first beer rating site. From there I searched for other beer rating sites, found ratebeer and so began my career as an amatuer reviewer. If you're reading this blog, please comment on my posts, I'd greatly appriciate it! Cheers!