Catalogue no. BBG091
Glasses
Exhibit information
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
Manufactured 2013 Curator’s Notes I found two of these glasses together at a brocante and paid 50 cents for each. There were only two, and having presumably survived together since 2013, it seemed unreasonable to separate them. They remain a pair in the collection, even if they share a single Museum entry.
The glass has a quiet elegance appropriate to Rodenbach Grand Cru. The bowl tapers continuously towards the stem, which carries the line smoothly down into a broad, simple foot. GRAND CRU sits imperiously above the smaller Rodenbach branding, while the reverse carries “aged in oak vats”, preceded by the same description in French and Dutch – a reference to the enormous oak ageing vats, known as foeders, that are central to the production of the beer.
The 33 cl measure is printed on the bowl, while the CEM13 mark is unusually tucked away on the foot. There is little unnecessary decoration. For a beer widely regarded as one of the great examples of the Flanders red ale tradition, the glass seems content to let the name do most of the work.
