Overheard

[In the supermarket .]

“Apparently he gets hungry on beer.”

Does the speaker mean 1. that this fellow gets hungry when he drinks beer, or 2. that he gets hungry for beer?

The Internets return only one result for “hungry on beer,” a page from a food lover in Delhi NCR, who says in a restaurant review that he could not taste his food because he was “pretty hungry on beer (I think no one can go wrong in serving a beer).” I think that he means that he was more interested in the beer than the food. The restaurant’s name: Beeryani. Groan. (If you’re puzzled, see here.)

If “hungry on beer” is an Indian idiom, I think it would be better represented online. The person I overheard in the supermarket is an indigenous east-central Illinoisan, no question. So I will leave “hungry on beer” to stand as a small intercontinental mystery.

Related reading
All OCA “overheard” posts (Pinboard)