I figured out what my stout tastes like...

I recently bottled my oatmeal stout, which had been dry-hopping for a couple weeks with 1/2oz Crystal pellets just prior to bottling. When I tasted it at bottling, it tasted really weird. I thought, no big deal, considering that it had had no time off of the hops to calm down. The smell was like ketchup, oddly sweet and acidic. Taste was wacky.

So I broke out a bottle last night and drank it chilled. Still tastes weird, but I think I pinpointed the oddity of the smell and taste. The smell is somewhat like calamata olives. The taste is like I added orange juice. You can't actually taste oranges, that's not what I mean. It's more like that sweet/acidic clash that you get when you drink OJ right after you brush your teeth.

Given that the stout tasted normal before dryhopping, I'm guessing that all of this is the fault of the hops, and I'm optimistic that it will normalize after a good bout of bottle conditioning. Anyone else have this issue with dryhopped stouts/porters?

I'm not sure exactly but i do know that some hops can add really strange flavors such as the hops in rogue's dead guy ale.

Dry hopping with crystal hops can give spicy/flowery flavors to an ale. I've never dry hopped a stout or a porter. If I was going to try it, I'd use something earthy like nugget.

3-4 weeks in the bottle & it probably won't be so noticeable.

Cool, I'm optimistic like you, david. I used Crystal because A) I had some on hand, and B) Papazian's Oatie Stout recipe actually called for, coincidentally, dry hopping w/ crystal pellets. But that recipe also called for "lagering" the ale for a couple months, which I didn't have the capacity to do at the time. So, hopefully, bottle conditioning will take its place. Since I have extra space in my lagerator (not enough for another carboy, but enough for a few sixers and big bottles), I think I'll actually "lager" some of it in bottle and see what happens.