IHOP beer aroma in IIPA

I just tried an Imperial IPA I brewed, specifically a dogfish head 90min IPA clone. I used amarillo, warrior, and simcoe hops. The beer is a bit young (just a week in the bottle) so it's still a tad bit undercarbonated, but tastes pretty good. I fermented it for a week, and left it in the secondary (and dry hopped) for 4 more weeks and now it's been bottled for a little over a week.

I compared it with a Dogfish Head Squall IPA (similar to the 90min but unfiltered) and it was pretty close except my beer had a distinct butter aroma. I'm not sure it is diacetyl or not. It smelled kind of like an artificial maple syrup aroma. Like a McDonalds hotcake or a IHOP pancake with butter. Basically, an artificial butter pancake syrupy aroma. It's not bad, it's just unusual, and not present in the dogfish head, which has a fresh herbal and flowery hop aroma. I'm wondering what causes the cheap pancake aroma and whether it will go away with aging, or what I can do to prevent it in the future.

PS The beer is 9% ABV and since I had to drink two of them (the homebrew plus the commercial comparison), I apologize for any typos in this post in advance.

not a fan of anything df makes, but my guess is not enough time in primary and way too much time dry hopping.
give it some more time in the bottles

You likely pulled it off the yeast before it could clean up the diacetyl. One week primary is awefully quick for a 9% beer.

wonderbread23 said:

You likely pulled it off the yeast before it could clean up the diacetyl. One week primary is awefully quick for a 9% beer.

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That is what I think, too. Diacetyl is probably what you're tasting, from a too-quick removal from the primary. The only other thing I can think of is diacetyl from infection, but if your sanitation was good it's probably not infection.

wonderbread23 said:

You likely pulled it off the yeast before it could clean up the diacetyl. One week primary is awefully quick for a 9% beer.

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Actually, I racked it even sooner that that. I think it was in the primary only 4 days since it had nearly hid the final gravity by then. I'm a beginner and I've been following the recommendation to rack to a secondary as the beer is just about finishing fermentation (when it's nearly at its FG). There is still yeast in suspension in the secondary so I would have thought four weeks in secondary would have cleaned it up.

It's also possible I dry hopped for too long (4 weeks), although the hop aroma is not as intense as the IPAs I compared it too so I would have liked a little more dry hopping.

The buttery aroma isn't exactly bad, and is only really noticeable if the beer is warm. Will it fade while it is in bottles or is it too late?

gio said:

Actually, I racked it even sooner that that. I think it was in the primary only 4 days since it had nearly hid the final gravity by then. I'm a beginner and I've been following the recommendation to rack to a secondary as the beer is just about finishing fermentation (when it's nearly at its FG). There is still yeast in suspension in the secondary so I would have thought four weeks in secondary would have cleaned it up.

It's also possible I dry hopped for too long (4 weeks), although the hop aroma is not as intense as the IPAs I compared it too so I would have liked a little more dry hopping.

The buttery aroma isn't exactly bad, and is only really noticeable if the beer is warm. Will it fade while it is in bottles or is it too late?

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Diacetyl doesn't usually fade at all.

I like to dryhop a week before bottling/kegging so that the hops aroma is stronger. Four weeks is a LONG time on dryhops. I usually just add the dryhops and then dryhop for 5-7 days or so.

Yooper said:

Diacetyl doesn't usually fade at all.

I like to dryhop a week before bottling/kegging so that the hops aroma is stronger. Four weeks is a LONG time on dryhops. I usually just add the dryhops and then dryhop for 5-7 days or so.

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I'm wondering if the diacetyl I'm tasting is being presently created by the yeast while the beer is carbonating? Since I added sugar and the yeast are fermenting is it possible that is what the diacetyl is from and that the yeast will breakdown the diacetyl when the carbonation is finished?

I had no idea how long dry hopping was supposed to take. I was under the impression it was the longer the better. The hop bag was floating in the beer (didn't know I was supposed to add marbles to make it sink) so I was worried that the hops weren't really submerged in the beer and therefore not doing anything. There is a strong hop aroma but it's not as strong as the IPAs I was comparing it too.