Catalogue no. BBG196
Glasses
Exhibit information
Glass style Goblet A stemmed glass with a broad bowl, traditionally associated with stronger Belgian beers, particularly Trappist and abbey ales.
Read in Explainer
Explainers Curator’s Notes This Charles Quint / Keizer Karel glass is a substantial, generously proportioned goblet with a broad bowl, heavy stem and an unusually decorative foot. The moulding is especially elaborate where the stem meets the bowl, forming a flower-like pattern that gives the glass a surprisingly ornate finish.
The branding is equally deliberate. Charles Quint appears on one side and Keizer Karel on the other, neatly reflecting Belgium’s bilingual identity, while repeated portraits of Emperor Charles V circle the bowl. The overall effect is formal, historical and rather grand — entirely in keeping with a beer named after one of Europe’s most powerful rulers.
At first glance, the glass looks as though it must have been specially designed for the brand. It turns out not to be quite that simple.
An IJsboerke ice-cream sundae glass (shown in the photo montage) uses the exact same glass shell: identical bowl, stem, foot, mould line and even the flower-like junction inside the bowl. Only the decoration differs. That strongly suggests Haacht adopted an existing commercial glass design and transformed it through branding rather than commissioning a completely bespoke mould.
That does not make the Charles Quint glass any less striking. If anything, it is a useful reminder that Belgian beer-glass design is not always about inventing a new shape. Sometimes the cleverness lies in taking an existing form and making it look entirely your own.
The IJsboerke glass remains, quite correctly, outside the formal Museum collection. But on this occasion the ice-cream interloper has proved unexpectedly useful.
Haacht’s own current shop still uses both Charles Quint and Keizer Karel branding elsewhere in the range, so the bilingual identity is very much part of the brand’s wider presentation, even though the current 33 cl glass is a different design.
