Banana beers

In Africa, the juice from ripe fruit of varieties known as ‘beer banana’ is also drunk fresh or fermented to make a beer with a low alcohol content and short shelf-life.

Banana brew is in high demand for social functions, boosting the incomes of both the farmers who grow bananas and brewers who brew the beer. The beer is important nutritionally and is rich in vitamin B due to the yeast content.

To make beer, mature but unripened beer bananas are harvested. The stalk of each bunch is split, and the bunches are then ripened.. To ripen the bananas, the bunches are carefully loaded into the olutala rack above the hearthstones

The heat of the cooking fire and smoke from the hearth over the course of many days upwards of one week will then ripen the beer bananas to the point that they are ready for juicing. The juice is subject to a further rough filtering through grass and poured into a large vessel in which it is left to ferment, having been covered over with banana leaves.
Banana beers