Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Uh, How Do I Pronounce Gueze or How I Learned To Pronounce Westvleteren and Other Belgian Beers


So, as a beer consultant I get a lot of customers asking me for beers from all around the world. The other day I had a customer who had picked up a bottle of Lindemans Framboise and she asked me how to pronounce the name. I told her I wasn't sure of the exact pronunciation but told her that I pronounce it "Fram Bwah" with the "s" being silent. She left the store very thankful but left me wondering if I had given her the proper information.
Yes folks, little stuff like this bothers me. I like to make sure I give people the proper information. Her visit got me wondering about a lot of the other beers we carry, their proper pronunciation and well, how do we learn how to pronounce them properly, short of flying to their respective countries.
Enter the Internet. I love the Internet and just knew I'd find something that could help me. After a little digging around I found what I was looking for and it came in the form of http://www.belgianstyle.com/. This website is devoted to everything Belgian and beer. It has style information, tasting notes, a Belgian glass section, a travel guide section and a how it sounds section. That's right, a section which helps you learn how to pronounce the different Belgian styles and beers. It's really cool because it gives you an English pronunciation and Flemish pronunciation as well. When you click on one of the flags representing either the English(American flag) or Flemish(Belgian flag) version of the word you want it pulls up your media player and plays it for you so you can hear how it is pronounced. Very cool, just what I needed!! I also learned that I apparently told that lady the wrong pronunciation and now feel like a tool. Oh well, next time I'll get it right thanks to this site. Oh yeah, and I now know how to pronounce Westvleteren!! Now if I could only pronounce Unibrou properly and stop saying "Unibrow" I'd be good.
Stay Buddhalicious!!
The Beerbuddha

3 comments:

Bryon said...

Hey there...

I just added your feed to my beer bloggers of note section on the right hand side of my site...

homebrewbeer.net

Vasu said...

Indeed, the S is not silent in Frambois. And, just think Uni-Brew instead of Uni-brow

Jana V said...

Framboise actually FrahmBWAHZ- not an 's' sound at all.