Highly carbonated beer

I brewed an IPA a while ago and am now able to enjoy the fruits of my labor. The only problem is that this beer is so overly carbonated it is almost impossible to really enjoy. What could have happened and what can I do now to help the cause. This was a brew that was fermenting in my crawl space and I actually could the airlock top on top of my I beam. When bottling it, I tasted it and everything was fine. I'm still clueless as to what went wrong.

sounds like it wasn't ready to be bottled. it was still fermenting?

Well this can be a tough thing all of us brewers have had to deal with. I've only found one solution to fix over carbonation in a bottle. I had an imperial pilsner that turned into bottle bombs. Sometimes over carbed beers come just from adding too much priming sugar or the beer wasn't done fermenting. Othertimes it can be an infection. Mine happened to be just a stalled fermentation that kick.started again in the bottle. My solution was to vent the caps by taking my bottle opener and just prying the lid up enough to let out the co2. Then before the carb bubbles reached the top I took my copper and re-capped them. It was tedious and it took mine about 10 vents each bottle but it was worth it. It turned out great. Just stop venting and re-capping once the bubbles stop reaching for the top.

Best thing to do is too always check your gravity to make sure your beer is finished. Adding adequate yeast is paramount to finishing the beer within usually six weeks for a mid range gravity beer. Oh and proper sanitation to prevent nasties that continue to ferment the usually unfermetable sugars.

Thanks for the feedback. This makes sense.