What flavor is this?

I had both Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA and Deschutes Mirror Mirror recently. They both had a very similar sweet malty taste to them. I have no idea what that flavor is, but I don't care for it all. I'm curious if anyone knows what malt that is so that I can avoid it in the future.

Im gonna go out on a limb and say unbalanced crystal

I'm not sure what the ABV of these beers are but generally the higher the ABV the maltier the beer is.

Malt and hops help balance the ABV.
Because of the amount of malt required to get the ABV so high then you can sometimes end up with a beer that is balanced more towards the malt end.

This flavour can also be gained/replicated by mashing high or using something like crystal malt.

Orfy said:

Because of the amount of malt required to get the ABV so high then you can sometimes end up with a beer that is balanced more towards the malt end.

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True. And to build on that, it's not necessarily that variety of malt that you don't like but the amount of it that was used. Those beers have a ton of IBUs so they need to use alot of malt to balance it out.

Dunno about Dogfish Head, but Mirror Pond uses something like Wyeast 1968, which emphasizes malt and finishes a little sweet. Might just be that...

probably crystal...if its used in any significant amount it produces an extremely sweet, caramel like barley taste. some people love it, some people dont. (i love it, but the key is to hop the hell out of it )

I'd guess the Crystal Malt. Generally I like it. I like my IPAs to have a bit of malt along with tons of hops flavor and aroma.

But there are lots of other factors that could contribute to the flavor you are experiencing.

Thanks for all the replies. I'm having another IPA right now that has the same flavor, but it's quite a bit less pronounced. It's Leafer Madness IIPA by Beer Valley Brewing Company: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/14984/42081. That flavor is not nearly as strong as DFH 90 Minute IPA but it's still there. The weird thing is, I actually really like it in this brew. I'm not sure if it's something that I'm just getting used to or what, but I actually like it in this one quite a bit. Leafer Madness is over 100IBUs though. Maybe that balances it out for me.