Render fields in a custom bean.tpl.php
Note, to avoid getting the 'pass by reference' error, assign the output to a variable before passing it in as an argument to the render() or drupal_render() functions

Partial Solution, without preserving display settings

For reference, I tried:
How do I render a field value including its format?

Which gave me something similar to:

&lt;?php
$banner = field_view_field('bean', $bean, 'field_banner_image')
echo render($banner);
?&gt;


The only problem being that it was ignoring my output display formatting I had set on the block type. You can specify one, but I couldn't find a source readily available with the values of the $display array which would be passed as 4th parameter to field_view_field.

Full solution, preserving display settings

Since I wanted to preserve the setting specified by the configuration of the field, and not rely on display defaults (ie: showing the label above an image) I looked back at the bean.tpl.php. Within the content they were building the $elements array, and using drupal_render. Giving this a shot and it worked:

&lt;?php
$banner = $elements['field_banner_image'];
echo drupal_render($banner);
?&gt;


This also preserved my removal of the field label.

This was all done within my bean--banner.tpl.php which should be a similar setup to what you're facing. Hope this helped!