Beer turned reddish/brown

[MrN]

I've got something here I haven't encountered before... I bottled my neipa about a week ago and as usual I normally have a half filled bottle at the end which I like to test after a week.

Well, I just opened it and poured it out and the beer appears to have gone a murky reddish brown. Dirty dish water comes to mind... The strange thing is it should be a very pale beer - it's only maris otter and a bit of flaked oats. What could have happened here, some sort of infection?

I've added a photo I took but not sure if it does it justice...

 

[Sadfield]

Any water treatment? Apparently high Bicarbonate levels can redden pale beers. The murk could be attributed to it being a NEIPA, although high bicarbonate will increase haze.

 

[MrN]

I used soft Asda bottled water with calcium chloride and a little crs added.

I imagine the cloudiness is down to the style and was expected. It's more the colour, could it be oxidation? Are there any infections that affect colour?

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[Sadfield]

Not that I know of, any reason why you suspect it could be infection or oxidation? Any unexpected flavour or aroma. Oxidation can alter colour. Any evidence of caramelisation in the boil?

It could be the yeast in suspension making the beer darker than you expect from the grain bill.

 

[MrN]

I'm sure it was fine before bottling. Hard to say if it tastes infected as it's quite young and has strong hop flavours. Could the fact the bottle was only half full lead to oxidation? I've never had a problem in the past

I guess I'll have to wait until I open some of the others... the colour just seems so strange, almost purple (this isn't so clear in the photo where it looks a more pleasant amber colour but still darker than I'd expect for an entirely base malt beer).

Edit: here's a picture I took of a sample when it was still in the fermenter and looks quite different to me:

 

[Sadfield]

Had a read around, and there is plenty of similar posts sighting oxidation as the cause. Not found any science to back this up. A new one on me, and would be interested to hear the outcome when you crack open a full bottle.

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[MrN]

I can't think what else it could be. I'd always heard about the darkening affect of oxidation but never experienced it so clearly. Is it the case that hoppy beers suffer from oxidation more than other styles?

I'll let you know how the others turn out!

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[Cwrw666]

So why not open a full bottle and see if it's the same? A week in the bottle is plenty long enough before you start taking `samples'.

 

[MrN]

I'll do that next weekend, I don't really drink much during the week!

I also filled a mini keg with some so will be interesting to see how that comes out.

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[Blinky]

I had exactly the same issue with my punk IPA clone...
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=68749

Ended up blurring it all down the drain as it was nowt like punk!

 

[MrN]

Interesting, thanks for sharing that. I've also done a bit of googling and this does seem to be an issue with paler beers - (ne)ipas and Berliner weisses come up.

Fingers crossed this was just a one off in this batch, otherwise I'll have to have a think about what might have gone wrong in my process...

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[user 18729]

May be partly down to chill haze at this stage making it look a bit darker?

 

[MrN]

Panic over. I opened a full bottle at the weekend and it looked fine and tasted even better!

Too be honest the photo doesn't really show up the difference much but there was certainly something wrong with that first bottle.

Here's the one I opened on Saturday: