bmbigda

Recipes 

agreed. Think of brewing with completely distilled water like cooking without salt. I'm sure it's not the sole cause of your problem, but the appropriate water chemistry acts as a vehicle for flavor in a beer. I realize the extract has it, but only to an extent that I believe to minimal.

But like I said, I doubt it can take 100% of the blame

JordanThomas

Recipes 

Then again, like many have mentioned before: It's hard to not go all-grain when different producers of extract likely use different ingredients. Who knows what is in those packets.

spabrewer

Recipes 

Overpitching, overaerating, overmixing and in general too vigorous fermentation will strip aroma out. I had a similar problem before and, knowing the hops were enough, results improved when fermentation slowed down. Ideally keeping a back pressure in fermenter can help too. Target is that aroma is as close as possible at beginning and of fermentation