After spending the day seeing all my beers taste like vinegar, I was scared to try one of my finished beers. I bottled both the IPA and black IPA the day I brewed the brown ale. What if I contaminated those beers while bottling? It’s been 2 weeks since I bottled those beers and I had put one of each in the fridge to try two days ago. I had to try one of them to see if it was ok.
I opened a bottle of the black IPA and poured a glass. It smelled great. And it tasted even better! I was so relieved. It wasn’t very hoppy, a bit more like a porter than a black IPA. Very malty with a sharp bitterness in the finish. If I were to change it, I’d add more hops early in the boil to add more hop bitterness and more hops during fermentation to add some more aroma.
The color is surprisingly very black. When I initially brewed this, it was much more brown and I was concerned that I didn’t add enough carafe malt. After tasting it now, I’m thinking a little less would tone down the sharp bitterness in the finish. And besides, it’s crazy black now!