Is this normal?
 

Is this dark stuff the hops that came up with the yeast? or someting else? It smells like bananas. It has a brownish/green color.

Its an Amber Ale extract recipe with Wyeast Activator #1028.
It has been fermenting for about 48 hours, first 12 hrs at 75deg and the rest of the time 67deg.

http://pooforthecrew.com/image002.jpg

Yes, your beer is fine.

Normal. Krausen often looks weird and ugly while it's going on but after it's over you have beer!

Welcome to HBT!

krausen can have dark particles pop up in the foam: it can be hop particles, proteins, and other residues. Completely normal.

I think it's fine. This is one reason I ferment in a bucket, once that lid is sealed I can't see what's going on and that's just how I like it!!! :cool:

Same here! I usually ferment in a bucket, but recently bought a 6 gal carboy so I could see what was going on inside. Boy was the a mistake!

I figure as long as I can maintain temperature I'll stick with using buckets for primaries. The benefit to glass this time of year is that it's a better conductor of heat/cold than plastic, so it maintains temp better in a bath of water.

The banana scent is an indication that your fermentation temperature may have been a a bit high. Those are esters, given off by the yeast due to the elevated ferm temp. If you brought it down soon enough you probably wont have any residual flavor.