OG too high!?

I'm brewing an ordinary bitter. The recipe I used has an OG of 1.036, but my OG was 1.050! (Yes, I adjusted the SG according to the wort temperature). I added a little more DME than the recipe called for.

Will the higher OG have any negative effect on my beer's taste? Do I need a longer fermentation now? (Sorry, if these are dumb questions - It's only my fourth batch.)

 

You missed the mark by quite a bit, but it's not a lost cause. Added DME along with boiling losses (you can lose quite a bit of water to evaporation over the course of a brew) will increase your OG. You'll almost certainly increase the ABV and alter flavor of the beer a bit - most likely by making it a bit more "dry." RDWHAHB!

In the future, you can adjust a high OG like that by diluting the wort with a bit of water. If you want to adjust a low OG, you can add some light DME (or whatever DME you think would be appropriate).

 

You might have been disappointed had your beer actually been 1.036. That's getting pretty 'thin' for a beer. I rarely brew anything less than 1.045

 

Here's an update:

Beer has been in carboy for five days with no visible signs of fermentaion, so I took a SG reading today. The SG is way down to 1.008! I tried the beer and it looks and tastes great. I think this one could turn out to be my best yet!

To all the other beginners out there, if you have only brewed with hopped kits, I highly recommend you try your hand at a recipe. I took this one from TNCJOHB, and I've already noticed an improvement.