First Time Brewing

To try to diagnose, it might help if you shared the recipe, your procedures, fermenting temps, starting and finishing gravity and so on.
Rough guess is that, being your first, you did an extract brew, right? And put the extract in at the beginning of the boil? And most likely boiling something like 2 - 3 gallons?
What happens then is that the act of boiling concentrated extract wort will cause it to darken more than a full boil or all-grain extraction.
As long as you've checked the gravity a couple times over the past few days and the numbers haven't moved, you're good to go.
I wouldn't worry about it. IN the words of Charlie Papazian (and if you haven't read The Joy of Homebrewing, do so.) "relax, don't worry, have a (home)brew."

 

Boiling the sugar longer causes the darkening, i.e. a mild scorching.

 

Are you looking at the color in the bucket/carboy or in a serving glass? Beer always looks darker when you're looking through more of it.

 

If you understand how extract is made the darker results make much more sense. Likewise extract beers will always be darker than an all-grain equivalent. As stated there are things to do that will assist with getting a lighter color when using extract.

Boil half (or all) of the extract only for a short period of time, say the last 15min or so. Do some research, there's varying ideas for how long is sufficient but probably the most debated variable of this method is the isomerization of the hops.

Do a full boil if possible. Obviously this is easier said than done but it does make a difference in color.

Use the lightest extract you can find. 'Ultra-light' or pilsner malt will have the least color so it makes sense it'll yield the lighter beer when compared to other darker malts. When I use to brew extract I'd start with the lightest extract and get my color/flavor from my steeping grains. Obviously you can't substitute pils malt for wheat malt so you'd have to enlist some of those other process changes in that regard.

Edit: one more thing. Extract will become darker the older it is too, DME is less susceptable vs LME so keep that in mind too.

 

You're welcome!

Sorry to all of the "joy of homebreweing" fans, I'm certainly a big Charlie P. fan, but I feel "How to Brew" by John Palmer is the true representation of a homebrewer's bible. You can check out the first edition online for free at his website. It's mandatory reading as far as I'm concerned.

 

I really think both of them should be mandatory. IMO Palmer is a little more technical, and deals more in the numbers and "why" of brewing - not to mention that his book is available for free online (an old edition to be sure, but still a worthy real, I think it's www.howtobrew.com (or something to that effect - google Palmer how to brew))
whereas Papazian is more relaxed. His method is, as long as your sanitation is on, and you don't completely screw the proverbial pooch, you'll end up with beer. It's two different approaches to brewing, and I don't think either one is really better than the other.
If you're not entering you're beers in competitions, then having it a few SRM darker or lighter, or a few IBUs more or less isn't anything to worry about. More people who would be trying your beers won't notice, and if they do and say something about it, they shouldn't be your friends. "hmm, this is your first homebrew? Well, this IPA is only 35 IBU instead of the 40 that is the judging minimums, and the color is too dark, so you need to dump it out and don't ever think about trying again!!!"
(yes, I'm exaggerating, but the point remains...)

 

Advice: don't panic. Bottle it and wait. Pop a test bottle in a couple weeks. You will likely be surprised at how good it is. Just because your beer didn't come out like you expected doesn't automatically mean you've made lousy beer. On the contrary, most of the time it's plenty drinkable, even if it's not what you expected. Give it a chance.

If you are doing extract or partial mash, try to get as close to a full boil as possible, with as little top-off water as possible. Use two pots if need be (and split the hops proportionate to how much is in each pot). That will help keep the colors lighter (a small point) but will make your overall beer a lot better (big point).

 

Anyone who's off by five points of bitterness on their IPA ... well, this is beer advocate, and we don't tolerate that kind of thing around here. The bitterness police are always right around the corner.

 

"Plenty drinkable" and its corrilary..."as long as it's not a drain pour"...FTW!