Ale Cold Crashed Many Months

Hi,

I made a couple batches of beer and then life got in the way. I made a cream ale using a Kolsch2 yeast from Wyeast and a Strawberry Blonde usingfresh strawberries and California Common 5 Yeast from WLP.

The beers looked great to start and when I moved them to the secondary. I cold crashed them in my fridge in September and they have sat there ever since at about 40 degrees. Due to me moving and I was working ridiculous hours, I had no time to deal with the beer.

Fast forward to today and I wanted to bottle my beer. The guys at the LHBS told me to repitch using the same yeast before bottling. The Kolsh2 is no longer available so I was advised to use Wyeast British Ale 2.

My question is, do I need to pull the carboy out of the fridge and bring it up to room temperature before adding the yeast since it is an Ale using Ale yeast?

My other question is, both beers seem to have darkened a lot since October when I last looked at them. What would cause the beer to darken in the Secondary after it had cold crashed for months? I see nothing wrong with the beers, there is no mold or anything, the beer looks very clear for both styles, just much darker than it looked when I last saw it when I moved. I know a beer will look darker in a carboy due to volume, but what I'm saying is that same beer in October, was lighter in color sitting in the carboy a month into it's secondary fermentation. Today it is darker. I wish I had a pic of the original color. I did take one today.

I would warm it back up. That way you don't have to calculate anything about residual co2 in cold liquids and how much less sugar you need. TO me it just makes it easier to go with what I already do all the time.

A bright beer would be darker because everything has fallen out of suspension. Yeast and such scatter light. You're good to go.

for both of those, you can use us-05 dry yeast to re-yeast for bottling. much cheaper, and since you already have the yeast profile set, no change done

Thanks to all for the replies