Banana?

Here in Sunny England we have a fantastic beer from Wells brewery called 'Banana Bread Beer' - This stuff doesn't just have a hint of banana; it actually smells and tastes like delicious banana bread! (Do you guys get banana bread in the US? It's basically a sweet brown bread with chunks of banana in it - it's absolutely awesome!)

Anyway, I want to try and replicate this beer.

The big question is, when should I add the bananas?
Fresh bananas or dried bananas?

How do I get a strong yeasty flavour into my beer? is it down to the type of yeast I use? The temperature of the primary? The amount of yeast?

My instinct says to create a slightly malty amber ale and rack it to secondary onto a bed of freeze-dried banana chips.

Help me build a recipe!
H
P.S. an extract recipe.

Definately use a hefeweizen yeast. Wyeast 1056 will put off some nice bananna flavors/aromas. My starters for this yeast usually smell like bananna bread. Also, ferment on the warmer side.

I think its bunk that warm=bananna/cold=clove on hefe strains. You do get increased ester production at high temps no matter what. This strain happens to produce bananna esters.