"Free-as-in-speech, not free-as-in-beer" is just expecting you the hearer to understand that while event advertisements might prominently feature the words "free beer" as an exciting statement that beer is being given away for zero cost to drive interest, zero cost is not the sense in which "free" is being used in "free software"
If I buy you a beer, that's free beer for you.
Which, unless you're my friend, prompts the questions "what else is in this beer" and "what's in it for you." I believe that to be a deliberate choice in the "free as in beer" analogy.