In the Philippines, our real love affair with beer started in 1945 when it began to be more popular (despite the presence of local breweries during the 1890s), according to Nick Joaquin in his Philippines Free Press article, Beer is for Eating! published in 1970 and written gleefully, no doubt, with a bottle of beer on his table.

Joaquin also notes how local recipes with beer were developed during that period (1969-1970), particularly by Dr. Ignacio S. Pablo, then director of the Philippine Women's University's Institute of Nutrition. Dr. Pablo was commissioned by the San Miguel Corporation after finding inspiration from "an American cookbook called Cooking with Beer. (I'm guessing it must be the very same book by Myra Waldo).

Dr. Pablo spent a year cooking with beer and came up with recipes steeped in this golden liquid. His basic rules: "use the beer at room temperature and never use more than two cups to a recipe [it makes the food bitter and have a strong beer-y odor]."

The result of the good doctor's lab experiments would make Auntie Puris proud and kitchen-bound–pork and chicken asado, chicken pastel, shrimp cocktail, onion soup, baked lapu-lapu, chicken with peas, pot roast, morcon, spaghetti with tahong sauce, fruit cake, and more–all with beer, glorious, beer.

So this month, you can choose to spread the cheer as local establishments stage their own version of the Oktoberfest. Or cook up a storm with dishes (not you) inebriated in beer. And watch out for that beer belly.

Photo courtesy of engindeniz