Banana bread

[lord.president]

Bizarrely (I can't stand bananas) one of my favourite beers is Wells' Banana Bread beer. Does anyone have any recipes/tips for this?
Ta in advance.

[jmc]

Bizarrely (I can't stand bananas) one of my favourite beers is Wells' Banana Bread beer. Does anyone have any recipes/tips for this?
Ta in advance.

I've heard that Wells & Youngs use a flavouring rather than bananas in their Banana Bread Beer.

Only beers I've brewed that have a hint of banana have been Wheat beers brewed with Weiss yeast at the warm end 18-20C.
Brew it cooler and you tend to get clove-like phenolics.

I like to use the yeast harvested from Schneider Weisse

[Bert]

I would also be interested in that recipe, wells banana bread beer is lovely!

[Bert]

I would also be interested in that recipe, wells banana bread beer is lovely!

[HopIt]

I also reckon its flavored. If its not I'd love to know what they are doing. I can't believe that is from yeast, maybe they wang loads of bananas in there, but to guess I'd say no.

[lord.president]

Oh,I'm disappointed now. Could have sworn I once read on the label it was made by adding xxxlb of Fairtrade bananas to Bombardier.

[jmc]

Oh,I'm disappointed now. Could have sworn I once read on the label it was made by adding xxxlb of Fairtrade bananas to Bombardier.

I can see no mention of adding fruit on their site

Wells Banana Bread Beer
Alcohol strength:5.2%
Pack format: Bottle

This unique brew combines all the traditional qualities and style of a Charles Wells beer with the subtle flavour of banana

Wells Banana Bread Beer is a popular beer in the Wells and Young’s range of ales. The beer has achieved a number of accolades including winner of "Beer of the Festival" award at CAMRA's London Drinker Festival in March 2002.

[Fuggled Mind]

Oh,I'm disappointed now. Could have sworn I once read on the label it was made by adding xxxlb of Fairtrade bananas to Bombardier.

I can see no mention of adding fruit on their site

Wells Banana Bread Beer
Alcohol strength:5.2%
Pack format: Bottle

This unique brew combines all the traditional qualities and style of a Charles Wells beer with the subtle flavour of banana

Wells Banana Bread Beer is a popular beer in the Wells and Young’s range of ales. The beer has achieved a number of accolades including winner of "Beer of the Festival" award at CAMRA's London Drinker Festival in March 2002.

According to Roger Protz in his 300 beers to try before you die, '...it has added to the range a beer that not only offers the ripe aroma and flavour of beer ...bur actually uses real fruit during the production process'.

He later mentions 'that banana pulp is added during the copper boil stage'. Not sure when during the boil though as the book doesn't say and neither are the quantities.

Cheers

Jason

[SamT]

Fairly certain the bottle claims to use fairtrade bananas in it ...

[Nofolkandchance]

Ive added Liquiflav http://www.bulkpowders.co.uk/bp-liquiflav-50ml.html to a couple of bottles come bottling time and its really not bad at all. Added the Raspberry one to a Wheat beer as well, again not bad at all

Its sugar free so wont ferment but its very sweet so 2-3 drops per bottle, or to taste. Even if you dont like it in beer its fckn brilliant in porridge, or milkshake and not at all artificial

[seymour]

You may laugh at this suggestion (and it's definitely not how Wells does it), but you could always bake banana bread, then crumble it into your mash tun along with Bombardier ingredients. I guarantee some banana notes would come through. Just a thought.

I've seen early American pioneer recipes for Persimmon beers and Paw-Paw beers where they first puree the fruit, blend with whole wheat flour and water to bake big loaves of flatbread. Once it was cooled, it would keep for quite a while as "road bread", and they could always crumble it and stew with warm water to produce a decent beer later using yeast from their sourdough starter. I've done this before, and the mash efficiency is surprisingly high, I assume because the pre-cooked fruit and flour have already undergone some starch-to-sugar conversion.