Losing flavor from kegging.. help

So im fairly new to kegging as i recently built a custom keggerator for my brews. I was solely bottling before. My first beer i kegged was an IPA that initially turned out great, balanced, sweet hoppyness, bitter, etc. I force carbonated it and finally set the psi at about 5 for dispensing. However, it kept coming out as just foam! So what i would do every time i dispensed some beer i would release the pressure that had built up inside by pulling the little valve on top of the corny. This resulted in smooth, foam free beer but i noticed after a week or two it had lost almost all of its great flavor, bitterness, hoppyness etc. that had originally made it so good!

Is this common w/ kegging your beer rather than bottling? Am i losing essential flavor by releasing pressure on the valve? Should i be naturally carbing it w/ dextrose than just using CO2 to dispense?

I've got a pumpkin ale that i will want to put on tap in a couple weeks and i dont want the same thing to happen to it so please help me out!!!

THANKS!

Sounds like you need to balance your lines to prevent foaming (just do a search there is tons on the topic). Pulling the relief valve for every pour is what killed your beer IMO.

Hope this helps

I serve my IPA's @ 10-12 psi. how long are your lines?

beer wont taste right if you de-carb it like you did. but a keg can be re-carbed.

You need to use one of these to dial in your pressure/temps. http://www.kegerators.com/carbonation-table.php

and get yourself 10' of 3/16" beer line and shorten as needed if you want to. I've left mine @ 10'.

Two points: releasing the CO2 in the head space removes some of the lightest aroma oils and low-carbonation means less aroma is released in the pour.

samc has the right idea.