Fun Beer Mispronunciations or Misinterpretations

Our biggest local brewery is Schlafly. It's pretty fucking simple. The laf in the middle is pronounce like the word laugh - it's shlaugh-lee. I can't tell you how many locals suck at phonetics and make it seem like the most difficult word to pronounce in the history of words. It's like the have a mouth full of marbles when trying to say it.

Shaflee
shafee (where did all the l's go?)
shlafly (like the insect)
shafly (like the insect)
shay-flee

 

A host on WFAN (sports talk radio) read an ad for a craft beer bar. Instead of saying IPA he pronounced it as a word eyepa !

 

If that was Joe Benigno, he can't even pronounce his own last name correctly.

 

Shlaugh-lee is hard to say...I'm putting it up there with rhinoceros, photosynthesis and snow shovel...But you know damn well now that I know how to say it I'm going to be demanding it at all the bottle shops!

 

I dunno. That one came across as kind of ominous and threatening to me. Yet, strangely, I need to have some Lowenbrau right now...

 

I always feel like I am butchering Fou' Foune. A little help?

 

This requires some sizing up of whom you're ordering from. I hear the last "-uh" more breathed than pronounced by the French, a bit more spoken in Flemish -- but then you have to growl the G. All fraught with peril. This reminds me of having a random, possibly drunk, passerby at a festival in Flanders correct my friend (francophone) ordering "ood girz". "She means ow-da hhhherzuh!" Which in turn reminds me of an easier funnier memory, not beer-related but the same letters in play, of trying to say Gouda to a resident. Convulsions at my deserving expense.

 

If you have Netflix, they have a dramatization called "Pompeii: The Last Day". It features both Elder and Younger, and their names are pronounced similarly to what you wrote: plih-NEE. The beers, otoh, have their own special pronunciation.

 

I've said it as "foo-foon" and nobody laughed or appeared to be awaiting a final syllable.

 

I that's the way I have been saying it, but it was just dumb luck. Thanks.

 

French isn't too helpful with this most (innocently) twisted of Flemish names. I feel like I've most often heard it on its home turf as "hOO-hghghgarden." My lowercase H is trying to represent the sound being, not silent, but more breathed than pronounced. I def'ly hear "hoo/who" for the first syllable (even in francophone Belgium). In correct Flemish you have to gargle or growl that G. As the bumpkin foreigner, I get by with "OO-garden" in francophone places and "hOO-hhharden" in Flanders or Flemophone parts of Brussels. God help the Fleming to whom I try to order a Brugse Wit (or Zot). ACTUALLY, now that I think about it, the safest play is "blanche" for French or "wit" for Dutch. Few bars stock more than one.

 

Most everyone I know calls Smithwicks .... Smithicks.
Look at the label again folks, there (IS) a "W" in there, I swear!!!
- Drives me nuts.

 

That's what I always thought it was...

 

I've heard that the Schlafly founder absolutely hates when people mispronounce the name of his company.

 

Something about Lost Abbey... I was at PF Changs and saw that they had "Lost Abbey Seasonal Selection" on the menu. When I asked the waiter which one it was, he said he'd ask the bartender. He came back a minute later and said "it's the Belgian one." Oh, the Belgian one.

 

One of my favorite "trih-pell-z"

What? you mean this tripel?

 

I'm sure it's been mentioned already, but Lagunitas is an eternally fun one at my workplace. I've gotten "Lah-goo-NI-tas", "Lah-goo-NEE-tas" (how I pronounce it), "Lah-goo-nee-TAZ" (usually said very rapidly, with strong emphasis on the last syllable)...and on one particularly memorable occasion, this exchange occurred between a customer and myself:

"Can I help you find anything, ma'am?"
"Yes, I'm looking for LANG-goo-NI-tas, please."
"Hmm...Lagunitas, ma'am? Out of California? That would be over here..."
*after a pause* "Sure, dear. You can pronounce it like that if you like."

 

yes, but it's pronounced with a silent W. You could also call it "Smiddicks" and not be too wrong.

Or you could just say "another pint"

 

first time at a new pub and asked for a beer I hadn't seen before "black butter porter" lol on the way out saw a neon and clearly said black butte porter.... woooops

 

Haha, my GF isn't a drinker (beer or otherwise), but she humors my hobby. She's been to the brewery with me and my family in Petaluma and still calls it Lang-goo-knee-tas 80% of the time. But she can say Bee-at-i-fih-Kay-shin