Beer aficionados are going bananas for a rare brew made in North Vancouver.
Shaketown Brewing Co. has won a silver medal for its Big Banana Brown Dunkelweisen at the 2025 World Beer Cup, held in Indianapolis, Indiana on May 1.
Big Banana earned second place in the South German-Style Dunkel Weisen category, which refers to dark wheat beers.
Over the course of a week, a panel of 265 judges from 37 countries evaluated 8,375 entries from nearly 1,800 breweries across 49 countries, according to the Brewers Association, which hosts the awards. Judges handed out 349 medals this year, one of them going to Shaketown.
The North Van producer was among just seven Canadian breweries chosen this year.
“Winning literally any medal in that competition for a brewery is humongous,” said Shaketown co-founder Ryan Scholz.
Bubbling over with pride, Scholz highlighted that it’s the third-straight year that the brewery has medalled at the world cup – going three-for-three since opening in 2022. Last year, Shaketown won bronze for its Pre-Prohibition Pilsner.
“To gain awareness as a new brewery is impossible. And nobody thinks that you’re making good beer out of the gate,” he said. “Hopefully now more people will know that we’re making great beer.”
Big Banana beer is banana-less
Brewmaster David Varga said the idea for the Big Banana came from suggestions that Shaketown should make a different-coloured beer.
“And I thought the colour of a brown beer is somewhat unpopular at this point in time, because most people just don’t drink that, they have the hazy ales, the hazy pale ales, fruit sours and pilsners,” he said.
Compared to other fruit-forward beers – like Shaketown’s own Belgian Dubbel Plum, which has real plums in it – the Big Banana is banana-less.
“The banana actually comes from the yeast itself. But … the darker malts give it a bit of a brown sugar, like a caramelized banana flavour, which I thought would work well in the cooler months,” Varga said.
Big Banana, which released in February, is a seasonal brew. But you might still be able to find it on shelves in some liquor stores. Varga said they still have a few kegs in house for the banana-curious.
And when cold weather returns next year, there’s a chance Shaketown’s dunkel weisen might swing back into action too.
“Any of these seasonals that do this well, it’s definitely something for us to look at," Varga said. “And you get those nice memory triggers going, ‘Oh yeah, I remember this beer.’”
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