Ain’t No Hollaback Beer | This Sh*t Is Bananas!

By: Naomi Kerchinsky

Introducing Troubled Monk’s newest seasonal, This Sh*t is Bananas Hefeweizen. Hefeweizen’s are a type of weissbier, aka weizenbier which translates to German wheat beer. Despite the Bavarian Purity Law that banned wheat to be used in brews, this style of beer still managed to be produced, asserting themselves as no hollaback beer, but a true beer of command and style.

This Sh*t is bananas Hefeweizen in select stores, the taproom and online at troubledmonk.com/shop
BEER NAME
ABV5.20%
IBU13.5
SRM3.5

Banana-bubblegum, Smooth & Sweet, Refreshing

This Sh*t is Bananas has a sweet aroma with a slight scent of banana and bubblegum. It pours a hazy straw colour with a white head. This beer is high in wheat and has a smooth creamy texture from the wheat’s high protein profile. In flavour, it has a broader character with a tiny bitterness from the carbonation. The yeast from Canada’s Escarpment Labs has a unique ability to give the beer a banana flavour. This banana sweetness is further enhanced with a bit of bubblegum popping through on the back of the tongue.  It’s rounded out with subtle flavours of spice and clove, and a bit of spelt from Red Shed’s Rocky Mountain Malt. A true refreshing beer to get you in the German mindset and Oktoberfest mood.

Picture of This Sh*t is Bananas can and poured pint of the hazy straw coloured liquid with a white head.

Fun Fact: Hefeweizen is spelled with only one “f”, yet somehow our can ended up with two “f”s because well, this sh*t is bananas….oh, well, let’s just polka this one out.

No Bananas Were Bruised

You want to know what it is really crazy? There are no bananas in this beer. So where does the flavour and aroma come from? The yeast used to make hefeweizen produces a strong odor similar to a banana. Isoamyl alcohol and acetic acid create this banana ester; isoamyl acetate. The name hefeweizen translates to “yeast wheat” in German. Now, you want to know what else is bananas about this? 

Hefeweizen is a type of German wheat beer, and is one of the most popular variety amongst this German style. Weissbiers were still produced during the time of Reinheitsgebot (pronounced: Rhine-heights-ga-boat), or otherwise known as, The Bavarian Purity Law, even though using wheat was against the law. Beer in the 15th century was a lucrative industry as people chose to drink it over water. In true capitalist spirit, bad brewers were adding in cheaper ingredients to increase profit margins. To improve consistency and quality, the Duke of Bavaria, Wilhelm the IV, created the ultimate edict for beer making, regulating the purity of ingredients that were allowed in beers within the Kingdom of Bavaria. These ingredients were: barley, hops and water. Wheat was not allowed. Yeast had not been discovered, and would not be until 1857 by Louis Pasteur. However, an exception was made for the pack-leading weissbier style with one brewery being allowed a special right to brew and sell white and wheat beers. And here is the really B-A-N-A-N-A-S part of this tale…

This one brewery that was allowed to produce wheat beers took 1/3rd of the total beer sales in all of Bavaria. So you can say with evidence that weissbiers were the one true winner of beer styles at that time: taking out laws, knocking out ales, and rising up as the last one standing, leaving all other beers biting the dust. 

A picture of Troubled Monk's This Sh*T is Bananas Hefeweizen beer with a bunch of bananas, pictured on the patio.

THIS beer is Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S

A few times we’ve been around that track so it’s not gonna happen like that ‘cause this ain’t no hollaback beer, this is a Hefeweizen. It’s a beer style from Bavaria, but this time it was made in Red Deer, Alberta. THIS beer is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S (because of its unique flavor profile).