I was reading a guidebook about Bruges/Brugge in Belgium, where I'm spending a few days this week:
...St Arnold, who founded the Benedictine Abbey of Oudenberge, to the west of Bruges in the 11th century. During a bout of plague, he plunged his cross into a vat of beer, and told people to drink it, instead of water. It was a miracle cure: people started getting better immediately, and St Arnold was made the patron saint of beer.