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{{data|27 August 2018}}

The town of Warka (pronounced ''<small>VAR</small>-kah''), about 50 km south of Warsaw, is best known for its brewery and the beer that is made there. The modern brewery, opened in 1975, currently belongs to Grupa Żywiec, which is majority-owned by Heineken International. It brews a run-of-the-mill pale lager branded as Warka Jasne Pełne, as well as its stronger, maltier version called Warka Strong.

Now back to the story. As is typical for Polish Wikipedia, the legend is quoted uncritically and without any citation of a reliable source. Oh, but it's just a legend, so who cares if there are any historical sources to back it up? The legend, in the same or slightly modified wording, has spread across the Internet. You can find it, for example, on the official [https://warka.pl/pad/p,63,santa-biera-di-warka website of the town of Warka] (where at least a source is cited – as Wikipedia). The anecdote predates the Internet, though, and can be found in printed sources as well. Tadeusz Żakiej, a musicologist who used to write about food under a double ''nom de plume'' as Maria Lemnis and Henryk Vitry, included the following version in his tale of Old Polish cuisine:

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| It was also said that Pope Clement VIII, who was in Poland in 1588 as a legate of the Holy See, became a great aficionado of the exquisite beer made in Warka. When, as a pope, he fell gravely ill in Rome, he asked, delirious from fever, for Warka beer, calling out, “Piva di Varca”. The cardinals gathered around the pope’s bed, believing the sick man was invoking some saint for help, immediately began to pray, “Sancta Piva di Varca, ora pro nobis.”

So we've got a ruptured ulcer again, but this time not in a pope, but in his envoy! The man in question is certainly Cardinal Enrico Caetani, whom Clement VIII sent as a legate to Poland and tasked him with convincing King Sigismund III to join a Habsburg coalition against the Ottoman Empire. The mission failed, by the way, as Maximilian III Habsburg was still claiming the Polish throne for himself after an inconclusive royal election.

So now we've got a riddle to solve: was it Clement or Caetani? Piva or Biera? To find out, we need to dig into somewhat older sources. Let's go back to 1888 and see if it gets any clearer.

Curiouser and curiouser! Firstly, the description of Warka beer as "excellent, whitish, piquant, reminiscent in flavor and color of wine" looks familiar, doesn't it? Ah yes, it was Polish Wikipedia that attributed these words to Clement. Now it turns out it was Caetani's opinion after all. And secondly, it was neither Clement nor Caetani who suffered from the throat ulcer, but Cardinal Ferdinando Maria Saluzzo, who lived a century later and served as the last papal nuncio to pre-partition Poland. So there, puzzle solved!

And besides, does it matter whether the anecdote tells of this or that prelate? What matters is that its every version praises the fine Polish beer of Warka, doesn't it?