hop tastes?

First off thank you all for helping me make some kick ass beer and letting me rdwhahb. this is my first post on here because so far i have been able to lurk and find answers but this i cant figure out. my more hoppy beers such as ipa and apas have an awesome hop presence but the hops seem to have more of a sharp or tart after taste i dont find in good microbrewerys. most of my beers attenuated more than expected so they are alittle dry. i do all grain, full boil and my ingredients are fresh. please help. thank you

water chemistry maybe?

What hops are you using for bittering? Perhaps you have a high cohumulone hop and that's contributing to harsh bittering.

well this has happened through out different beers that last three that i remember are amarillo, galena and warrior

I find that when I use Amarillo for the bittering addition, it leaves a tart aftertaste that I am not a fan of. Haven't ever used galena or warrior hops.

Water chemistry and hop variety both can contribute a different presence to the taste. It's hard to determine what kind of water you have unless you have it tested.

Also, if you are doing AG brewing, you may be leeching tannins, giving your beer some astringency, which can sometimes be described as a harshness in the aftertaste.

IMO a lot of the good IPAs coming out have more late hops, which provide lots of flavor without as much of the harsh bitterness.

well my ipa is edworts house ipa and all my other pale ales are alot of late hops to get the ibus. i was thinking of getting my water checked but last beer i made i checked to ph of the mash and it was alittle high could that have somthing to do with hop flavor or tannins. thank you for the help so far

High pH during sparging could cause some tannin extraction if the temperature is too high. I'd recommend looking to keep the pH at a reasonable level during the sparge no matter what the temp.

If you are going to get into pH monitoring and adjustment, you may as well have your water checked and start playing with the complete water adjustment. It's not very expensive and can be an interesting addition to your hobby.

+1 to Homercidal.

If you want to try playing with your water (AFAIK sulfur sharpens bitterness), a good first stop is ajdelange's sticky on the topic in the Brew Science forum. There's a ton of good info there. You can start out very simple and possibly rule out the water.

That ^^ sounds reasonable to me. My IPA has very late hop additions (7 min. and F.O.) and no early additions at all. IBU's seem to be up, I know a lot of the hops at 7 min. make up for zero early additions (hopbursting) and I tend to agree that bitterness can easily be mistaken for flavors and not actual bitterness from the extreme hop bill during hopbursting in my case.

i will be getting my water tested to figure this out. i also know that i have an artisan well that has alot of limestone which could be part of the problem. i dont know how i feel about the citrus flavor causing a tartness because alot of craft breweries use cascade, centennial and other citrusy hops and just seem to have a smoother flavor in my beers

I know what your saying it seems alot of times i get a tarting bitterness from citrus like hops unlike commercial craft beers, im trying to figure it out myself,sometimes i blame the hops other times my water.Water ph is a tricky thing and hops. Thats kind of why im trying first wort hopping now.

do you find fwh is cutting down on the tartness