The favorite heirloom thread, lower on this page, kind of answers that question for many of us.

Let me suggest, however, that if you like the Blue Lakes, you won't care for some of the others mentioned. I don't care for Blue Lake at all, for instance, as I find them relatively tasteless. Obviously, my tastes run to a heavier, more beany flavor than yours. So my favorites probably won't meet your desires.

Oh no. gardenlad I have never tasted a bean with too much of a beany flaver for me. You see before I found this garden forum I didn't know very much about heirloom vegies. Even now I find that they are not as easily accessible as some of the other common seeds. Next year I certainly plan to find out how beany a bean can be ;). I will look for that thread and read it but I still hope to get some input from other bean lovers.
Thank you
Mel

Here are some good answers.

Here is a link that might be useful: What kind of green bean do you like and why?

We have a family bean that I'm getting ready to pass on to the 5th generation. My aunt thought it was a fava bean, but it doesn't match that description. We've only used them as a dried bean; it has a hearty, meaty flavor. It is a pole bean and has red blooms. The pod is 5-7" long with black & brownish-red seeds when dried. The bean is approximately 2 cm long, 1 cm wide and 1/2 cm thick. I have a picture that I would gladly email if needed to identify.
~cin

cin,

Sounds like a runner bean to me, particularly with the red flowers and the size of the beans.

I found Blue Lake to be more prolific than Ky. Wonder but not as flavorful. Rattlesnake is another good one. Ky. Blue is supposed to combine the best qualities of both but in my experience ( One year only )it missed both. Roma ll is undoubtedly the best bush bean I've grown.
I like French Horticulture bush bean for shellies. and Christmas Limas for butterbeans.

My favorite bean is a red peanut bean. We call them pink tips here. The only problem with them is that they are small and stringy and take forever to string and break for canning. Greatest flavor of any bean I know though.

Jackier, is that the red peanut from Mayo? That is, it's a six-week bush bean?

Red peanut is a new one to me. Can you tell me more about it?

Jim

If it's the same one I'm familiar with, Jim, Red Peanut is a bush variety that bears in about 45 days. As the pods mature they turn pink.

Mayo Seeds, of Knoxville, is the supplier of the Red Peanut. But often it is private branded. Southern States, for instance, carries it under its own name.

Red Peanut is a commercial version of the Bailey's Six Week bean in my collection. That one goes back in the Bailey family of northeastern Kentucky for about 150 years. Whether the Bailey's got it as a commercial variety, originally, depondent sayeth not.

By me the Bailey's produces in 43 days. The pink begins to show at the tips once the pods are past their prime as snap beans. Eventually the entire pod turns a deep pink, almost red, and the beans are also reddish pink, and about the size and shape of peanuts while in the fresh shelly stage.

Although they do have zipper strings, the Bailey's does not otherwise turn stringy or fibrous, but does toughen up once it goes through the color change.

They have a rich, beany flavor, and make a great canning bean as either snaps or shellies.

Yes, I am pretty sure it is from Mayo. I live in Cleveland, TN just south of Knoxville and can get it here and got it in Rogersville, TN just North of Knoxville. It is an early bean, but as I said, takes forever to break a canner full.

The majority of heirloom beans have zipper strings, Jackie. Maybe because of that we're used to stringing them, but we never found the Bailey's (Red Peanut) to be particularly irksome.

Normally we'll pop a video in, and watch the movie while we string the beans.

Only difference is that most of the varieties we grow are pole types, so there are rarely as many to do all at once as there are with a bush bean.

But the taste of this one is worth any trouble, IMO.

My favorite bean is the Blue Lake 274's. They get big and have a wonderful taste. This is the most popular type of bean in my area. I have a lot of people wanting to buy the beans because they taste so good.

Romanette is sweeter than a typical Roma type but not quite so beany in flavor. It is very tender. I like the compromise between the Roma flavor and sweetness. I appreciate it here for its heat tolerance, which approaches some of the heat-setting types like Brio or Festina. My mother-in-law likes 'Contender' for beany flavor, but it is not as sweet. I think some of the pole varieties are "beanier" than the two I have named here.

You can get Romanette from Crosman's Seed for a reasonable price. Johnny's replaced it in their catalog with a more typical Roma this year.