The sweet smell of bananas

I have smelt fear, and it smells like... bananas!

As I may have mentioned at some point, our apartment is small, and so we always have to shuffle a bit to find a place for the fermenter. I opted to put it in the bedroom today because the weather has been unseasonably warm, and it is always a little cooler in the bedroom. My wife was taking a nap at midday, and she turned on the fan. This isn't particularly unusual, but she had the fan turned around so it was blowing the air out rather than in. She said the smell of bananas in the room was overpowering.

WHAT!

My recollection from reading Papazian was that a banana smell was due too high presence of esters in the fermenting beer, an undesirable situation caused by fermenting at too high a temperature. It is on the high side right now (about 77ºF), so I was concerned.

So I called Ray. He laughed. He said it isn't a problem - it's the yeast (Wyeast # 1214XL Belgian Abbey Ale Yeast). This yeast tends to produce more esters, and I should expect banana and perhaps clove (phenol) aromas. As I looked around I learned also that this yeast has a high alcohol tolerance (shouldn't we all), and is very suitable for high-gravity beers. From Wyeast:

Wyeast 1214XL Abbey Ale
Abbey-style top fermenting yeast suitable for high gravity beers, dubbels, trippels, and barley wines. Medium flocculent strain which clears well.
Apparent attenuation: 72-76%.
Flocculation: medium.
Source: Chimay.

Not sure I am looking for the "Banana Frubee," though....

It seems that these aromas and flavors are pretty common in weizen beers.