dark Ipa?

I have brewed an ipa and it is really dark almost the color of soda, I burned the wort just a little during the brew ing it the the reason?

You've got to give us more information that that or we can't help... extract or AG? If extract, liquid or dry? If liquid, how fresh was it? What steeping grains did you use?

Does it taste burnt?

The longer you boil the wort the more caramelized your malt is going to be and therefor darker. Next time you can drop it in at 30min into the boil and that should give you a lighter beer overall. Make sure to take kettle off direct heat when you do so, as you can easily burn your extract at this point.

It is also going to look much darker in the fermenter than in the glass.

Tenchiro said:

The longer you boil the wort the more caramelized your malt is going to be and therefor darker. Next time you can drop it in at 30min and that should give you a lighter beer overall.

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Well, not really, unless you compensate for losing a lot of utilization on your hops. You can ADD your extract near the end of the boil (all or part of it), but you still want to boil your bittering hops for an hour unless you add a crapload more (which then impacts how much hop flavor remains).

the_bird said:

Well, not really, unless you compensate for losing a lot of utilization on your hops. You can ADD your extract near the end of the boil (all or part of it), but you still want to boil your bittering hops for an hour unless you add a crapload more (which then impacts how much hop flavor remains).

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I meant that you just boil the hops at 60 in just water then add your malt at 30. You still get the full utilization for bittering.

EDIT - On my last batch I steeped 1# of 50-60L Crystal for 25 min @ 160 then brought that to a boil. Added my bittering hops, at 60 then at 45 added my LME and at 30 added the Amber DME and it came out quite light.

EDIT 2 - Also I think the lower overall gravity of your wort for the initial boil may even increase utilization of your hops.

OK, that just wasn't clear from your reponse. I suspect the OP is a relatively new brewer, I didn't want there to be needless confusion.

So what do you actually call a dark IPA, lets say it was about the darkness of a nut brown or a light porter. It is obviously not an India PALE Ale, what would the BJCC rules say about this beer, what should it be called?

the_bird said:

OK, that just wasn't clear from your reponse. I suspect the OP is a relatively new brewer, I didn't want there to be needless confusion.

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I clarified my post.

Donasay said:

So what do you actually call a dark IPA, lets say it was about the darkness of a nut brown or a light porter. It is obviously not an India PALE Ale, what would the BJCC rules say about this beer, what should it be called?

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Well, it's still an IPA. It's just not going to be the "correct" SRM for color for judging. It's not a different style because of the color.

It's just Ale. A Hoppy one.

Why the need to fit it into a style.

It's BEER.

YooperBrew said:

Well, it's still an IPA. It's just not going to be the "correct" SRM for color for judging. It's not a different style because of the color.

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Actually Yoops, you could easily, and officially push an American IPA into American Brown ale with SRM alone.

Chairman Cheyco said:

Actually Yoops, you could easily, and officially push an American IPA into American Brown ale with SRM alone.

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Good point! I thought of that, but then thought that the IBUs and hoppiness from the IPA would make that out of style, too. Cheyco's more of a beer expert than I am, though, so we gotta believe him. I'm sure he's right.

For extract brewers, it's kind of hard to make beers the light color you see in commercial beers. The extract just seems to darken even if you add it late. If you have your eyes closed, though, the beer tastes just the way it should and as good!

YooperBrew said:

Cheyco's more of a beer expert than I am

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To be read: 'Style-freak'

I *think* the Brewer's Association guidelines (which I like better than the BJCP) include a category for a darker IPA, but I'm not sure. I know there's a category for what's basically a red IPA.