Catalogue no. BBG061
Glasses
Exhibit information
Beer style Fruit Beer Belgian fruit beers use fruit, fruit juice or other fruit ingredients to add distinctive flavour, aroma and colour to a beer, across a wide range of underlying beer styles.
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Explainers Glass style Goblet A stemmed glass with a broad bowl, traditionally associated with stronger Belgian beers, particularly Trappist and abbey ales.
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Explainers
Capacity 33cl / 25cl
Manufactured 2020 Curator’s Notes Clarisse Rouge is an 8% fruit beer from Brouwerij Wilderen, and its dedicated glass makes little attempt to disguise either its strength or its personality.
The tall-stemmed goblet has a generously rounded bowl which narrows through the middle before flaring again towards a gold-rimmed lip. Marked for both 25 cl and 33 cl servings, it is clearly designed specifically around the beer rather than as generic brewery glassware.
The decoration provides the real character. A voluptuous female figure sits at the centre of the Clarisse Rouge emblem, framed by radiating lines resembling a halo or sunburst. I can find no reliable evidence that she represents a particular historical or folkloric character; she appears instead to belong to the identity created for the beer. The combination of sensual imagery with something faintly saint-like gives the design a knowing ambiguity.
For a strong 8% fruit beer, it is an appropriately theatrical glass — although the theatre is concentrated almost entirely into one small emblem.
