I had my first beer at age eleven. It must have been a quarter of a bottle. But instead of being poured in a glass, it was mixed into a pan of brownie batter. The beer made the brownies moist and flavorful (and me a secret alcoholic with a sweet tooth).

I have yet to locate the recipe but it was concocted by my father's Auntie Puris, an avid home baker from Sta. Ana, Manila. In the late '80s, we were the lucky recipients of her baked goods, most notably the brownies generously sprinkled with chopped nuts and spiked with beer. I was the eager eater and could finish off the whole stash in one sitting. It's difficult to practice charity and generosity among my sisters with those brownies around.

As a child, I remember my parents and my lola would occasionally share a bottle or two of beer over grown-up conversation. But I didn't care much for beer as a beverage, even if it would be legal for me to drink it years later. Its lovely amber color (and the "coolness" factor that reeked off my college friends when they finished off a barrel) was not enough to convert me into an Oktoberfest regular.

Instead, beer to me was for cooking, the secret flavorings–like vanilla and rum–that one spoons onto a cake mix. It was nourishment captured in food. My mouth waters at the thought of beer melting into dark brown sugar and butter from the heat of the oven.

Not that cooking with beer is an entirely new concept. In her 1958 book, Beer & Good Food, cookbook author Myra Waldo writes that cooking with beer is a centuries-old practice. She lists the allure and importance of beer in cooking (I'm tempted to run to the kitchen and cook me some adobo with beer):

"The use of beer as a recipe ingredient lends a subtle variation to many dishes, relieving the everyday sameness of routine foods; often it converts homespun repasts into epicurean delights. It intensifies the flavors of familiar recipes, highlighting gravies, sauces, and meats by supplying an artful and intriguing undertone. Beer improves the texture of pancakes, puddings, and cakes by furnishing a desired lightness and buoyancy… Beer, used as a marinade, tenderizes and penetrates meat. When basted with beer, roasted meats become attractively glazed, delicately browned and deliciously flavored."