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{{data|3 10 June 2019}}There were times when people told legends of saints and blesseds, of their great piety and their alleged miracles, to give people an example of how to heroically keep one's faith and stay in God's grace. Nowadays, some of these stories are being told to help sell beer. We've already talked about the legend of "[[Saint Piva of Warka]]". Today, on the 416th anniversary (give or take a few days) of his death, we're going to take a look at a certain Błażej Pęcherek (pronounced ''{{small|BWAH}}-zhey pen-{{small|HEH}}-rek''), who lived Greater Poland, in a region in of what is now west-central Poland, known as Greater Poland. He is better Better known as Father Bernard of Wąbrzeźno (pronounced ''vawm-{{small|BZHEZH}}-naw'') and , he is famous for his legendary role in the creation of Grodziskie beer.

Here's the legend as told by Greater Poland's official tourist website: All of the town's wells had gone dry, even the largest one, from which local beer brewers drew water for their breweries. Those who hadn't succumbed to the disease now faced starvation. The monk took pity on the burghers, so he fell to his knees and began to pray fervently for God to have mercy on the town. When he made a sign of the cross over the well, it started to fill with water. What was unusual particular about the water was that whoever drank it, would recover from illness, and that the beer brewed from it has become famous. After Father Bernard's death, the inhabitants of Grodzisk start yearly pilgrimages, bringing a keg barrel of Grodzisk beer to his grave at Lubiń. This tradition survived as long as Grodzisk beer was being brewed. The locals hope to revive it one day.

As with every legend, so does this one bring about so many questions: who was this Bernard? Was the town of Grodzisk (pronounced ''{{small|GRAW}}-jeesk'') in Greater Poland (a region in west-central Poland) really ravaged by an epidemic? Did the town well really fill with water thanks to Bernard's prayers and was it the water really perfect for brewing beer? Is it true that the inhabitants of Grodzisk brought a keg of the beer each year as a votive offering to Bernard's grave in Lubiń? And was the beer really famous for its health-promoting properties?

Let's begin with Bernard, referred to in some sources as "the Blessed Bernard" – even though his beatification process has never come to conclusion, so at best he gets to be styled "the Servant of God". Little is known about his life is known apart from what we can find in hagiographic sources, whose main aim is to present a case (so far, unsuccessfully) for his beatification. If we prune all the flattery about his "holiness which shines a light so bright as to compel all to worship and adore him"<ref>{{Cyt

}}</ref> and the long list of miracles ascribed to him "with which he conquered even the eyes and minds of the enemies of monastic life",<ref>''Ibid.'', s. 40</ref> we'll be left with a biography no more longer than a few sentences long.

Błażej Pęcherek was born in 1575 as one of eight children of Paweł Pęcherek, a mayor of Wąbrzeźno (a town also known by the German name, Frideck), and his wife, Dorota.<ref>''Ibid.'', s. 3–4</ref> When Błażej was 11, his parents sent him to a Jesuit school in Poznań, the major city of Greater Poland.<ref>''Ibid.'', s. 6</ref> There he became acquainted with some Benedictine monks and he liked their way of life so much that he joined their monastic community just after graduating at the age of 24.<ref>''Ibid.'', s. 15</ref> A year later, in 1600, he concluded his novitiate and took his vows under the name as Brother Bernard.<ref>''Ibid.'', s. 20</ref> He was ordained priest soon afterwards, thus changing from a "Brother" into a "Father".<ref>''Ibid.'', s. 22–23</ref> Only two years after joining the monastery, Father Bernard became a master of novices, responsible for training new monks.<ref>''Ibid.'', s. 25–26</ref> This promising monastic career was cut short not long after that, on 2 June 1603, when, after a brief illness, Father Bernard died at the age 28 in the odour of holiness.<ref>''Ibid.'', s. 33</ref>

It turns out, then, that even if the Grodzisk beer had the miraculous healing properties it's been claimed to have, then our Bernard must have never drunk it – otherwise, he would have lived a little longer. So what, if anything, did the Benedictine monk have to do with the beer? And what's so special about the beer brewed in Grodzisk beeranyway?

[[File:Grodziskie reklama 2.JPG|thumb|upright|left|Grodziskie beer commercial advertisement from 1946]]When it comes to beer-brewing traditions and to variety of beer styles, Poland is certainly far behind such beer powers as the Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium or England. Only a decade ago, about the only beer that was brewed and drunk in Poland was various brands of so-called international pale lager, produced by giant corporations and as similar in taste as possible to the one beverage quaffed by absolutely everyone in the world – water.<ref>{{Cyt

However, the ''koźlak'' is nothing more than a Polish version of the German ''Bock'', while the Baltic porter is brewed – as the name of the style implies – throughout the Baltic Sea basin. Does it mean that Poland hasn't brought anything of its own into made any original contribution to the world of beer? Not exactly. The one unique native style that Poland has to offer is Grodziskie (pronounced ''graw-{{small|JEESK}}-yeh''), also known as Grodzisz (''{{small|GRAW}}-jeesh'') or by its German name, Grätzer (''{{small|GRATE}}-sir''). The only problem is that this beer style, well… it went extinct.  Let's go back to Mr. Gostomski's article:

Yes, it's ''that'' Michael Jackson, the famous connoisseur of beer and whisky (just making sure it's clear, because I've heard there was some other Michael Jacksontoo). Anyway, coming back to Grodziskie, it's a top-fermented beer that is brewed from oak-smoked wheat malt. You can see it's an old style; in the past practically all malt was made over an in open -firekilns, so practically all malt was smoked. Once brewed, the beer is clarified with isinglass (, or a kind of glue made from fish swim bladders(another time-honoured practice), then bottled and allowed to referment in bottles (just like Champagne), which gives it a distinctively large head of foam when poured.

The United States, a country which until not so long ago was famous known for its distinctively tasteless beers, also happens to be the home of the Beer Revolution. It was the American beer drinkers who first said "enough" to the adjunct-infused pale lagers mass-produced by multinational breweries and began to to brew brewing their own beers – first at home homes or in garages and then increasingly in brewpubs and craft breweries. The number of U.S. breweries skyrocketed in the 1990s and again in the 2010s; by 2015, the 1873 record of 4,131 breweries, had been broken.<ref>{{Cyt

Home and craft brewers looking for new flavours eventually reached for historical recipes – the more exotic, the better. The first attempt to recreate the extinct Grodziskie beer (which got Jackson's seal of approval) took place in America as early as 1997. With time, the Beer Revolution spread accross across the globe, reaching Poland in the early 2010s. Bringin Bringing Poland's only native beer style back from the dead became the Holy Grail of Polish brewers (although quite a lot of this style is also being brewed in America, perhaps even more than in Poland). The task was relatively easy as Grodziskie had only become a historical style less than two decades before. Drinkers who remembered its taste and brewery employees who remembered the recipe were still around; the Grodzisk strain of yeast had been preserved as well.

Eventually, the [https://pspd.org.pl/style/grodziskie-redivivus/ Polish Home Brewers' Association] set up a speical special commission in 2011 to come up with guidelines for brewing a beer that would best reflect the historical Grodziskie style. The commission has manged to pinpoint most details of the recipe: 100% oak-smoked wheat malt, the preserved Grodzisk mix of top-fermenting yeast, aromatic Nowotomyski hops from the Greater Poland town of Nowy Tomyśl (which may be replaced with other Central European aromatic hop varieties, like Lublin, Saaz or Hallertauer), clarification with isinglass, refermentation in bottlebottles, etc.

And last, but not least, the mineral profile of the water. Even if good beer should not taste like water, water is still the principal ingredient of beer; its quality and chemical composition have a tremendous impact on the quality and flavour of the beer that is brewed with it. For Grodziskie, the water should come as close as possible to that from the Grodzisk town well – or the wells that were used by local breweries once the town well proved to be insufficient to sustain production on a larger scale.

| The very hard water drawn from these wells, may be considered good for beer-brewing purposes, although not for brewing a Pilsner-style pale lager. The high calcium and magnesium content helps the processes of mashing and fermentation, while the high concetration concentration of sulphates sulfates brings out the bitterness in beer. The large amounts of chlorine and sodium ions serve to enhance taste perception, which is particularly important for light beers.

So let's return to Fether Father Bernard and how he supposedly saved Grodzisk from an epidemic that befell the town of Grodzisk. This is how it happened according to his hagiographer, Father Marcin Chwaliszewski:

[[File:Grodziskie reklama.JPG|thumb|upright|Grodziskie beer advertisment advertisement from the 1930s]]

Well then, what about the well? Did Bernard miraculously fill it with water or not? Even if he did, it couldn't have happened in 1620, as this would have been 17 years after his death. According to the hagiographic account, Bernard helped deliver the town dwellers from pestilence only as a ghost. The only detail that checks out is the keg of beer given to the monastery each year. Where, then, does the story about the well come from? The oldest version of that legend I found was is the one told by Count Edward Raczyński , who thus described his visit at the Lubiń Benedictine church in his ''Memories of Greater Poland'':

| While admiring the sepulchers, I looked with reverence at the monument to Bernard, a monk of this monastery, who is counted among the blessed and whose tomb stands close to the church door. {{...}} One day, as I have been told here, the Blessed Bernard went to Grodzisk, where he encountered its residents greatly distressed because the well, whence they drew water for the brewery, which was the sole source of income for the town and the local hospital, had run completely dry. The monk took pity of the haplesspopulace, said a prayer to God and blessed the well, in which, as if from beneath an Artesian drill, a spring rose up immediately. The brewers got to work at once and what was their surprise when, having tasted the new batch of beer, they found it inimitably better than ever before.

Again, the amount of beer offered to the monks checks out – but that's it. There's no mention of any epidemic in Raczyński's story. The calamity that Father Bernard miraculously resolved (in this version, during his lifetime) was the lack of water for brewing beer. It seems that it was only much later that someone combined these two legends into one; perhaps they thought that a story about the dried-up well should be made more dramatic by throwing adding pestilence ininto it. As if shortage of beer weren't a disaster terrible enough!

In any case, the legend thus pieced together served, on the one hand, to justify the very important (from the monks' point of view) custom of giving the monastery a keg of beer every year and, on the other hand, it reinforced Grodziskie's reputation as a beer to cure all ills. In the past, beer (in general) was indeed more healthy safer to drink that than water – firstly, because the process of brewing required good-quality water that was boiled at on top of that and, secondly, the alcohol and the hops had additional antiseptic properties. But even with all this in mind, Grodziskie beer stood out as a beer style that could be even used as medicine.

| Grodziskie grew in fame throughout Greater Poland to that the point that a any nobleman who hadn't any had no Grodziskie beer in store was considered either a pauper or a miser. It owed much of its esteem to doctors who valued it as highly as mineral waters. It is a light and tasty beer and which doesn't spin your head around; doctors, who in all kinds of ailments forbid you to take any other liquors, allow you to drink Grodziskie and indeed prescribe it in some cases.

A beer style so famous commanded an adequately high price, set by the guild of maltsters and brewers together with the Grodzisk town council. In the 17th–18th centuries, the beer was not only given offered to the Lubiń monastery, but it was used a kind of virtual currency; mayors of Poznań received part of their payment in the beer and the hatters' guild in a nearby town specified a barrel of the beer as a penalty for price undercutting.<ref>{{Cyt

The belief in Grodziskie's health-promoting properties lived flourished well into the 20th century, when its advertisements stressed that "Grodziskie beer is often prescribed by physicians to convalescents and those suffering from stomachache and even diabetes."<ref>{{Cyt

One can say that GrodzskieGrodziskie, formerly brewed in only a single town and then – for some time – nowhere, is now an international style (even if still a rather niche one). Im In 2015, this style's production finally returned to a newly opened brewery in Grodzisk itself, where it is now brewed under the [http://browargrodzisk.com/nasze-piwa/ "Piwo z Grodziska"] ("Beer from Grodzisk") brand. Like in the past, it is still light-coloured, low-alcohol, foamyeffervescent, refreshing and (perhaps) healthy.