Strange taste

The past 2 beers i have brewed (pale ale, blonde ale) have developed a weird taste that seems to come along as the beer chills. Its hard to explain but its almost like a hairspray taste and i dont know what to do about it. The beer is definitely drinkable but this strange flavor is annoying me. Im willing to send a bottle or two to any experienced brewer for evaluation.

Are you familiar with this?

Might help define the defect better!

Have you changed anything recently, like water, yeast, cleaning/sanitizing procedures? How long do you age the beer?

Nothing on that wheel jumps out at me. But im leaning toward solventlike maybe? Im familiar with the flavors of alcohol like "hotness" and thats definately not the strange thing in my beer. And i just use the gallon jugs of drinking water, i use starsan, i do use an aluminum pot but the tastes doesnt seem metalicy. And i use a coleman cooler for a mashtun. Im baffled!

The descriptor hairspray would lead me to solvent or possibly acetone (nail polish remover) as the flavor. Typically comes from too hot of a fermentation, but it can also come from infections or non-food grade plastic. It is also easily confused with medicinal/chlorophenolic flavors. Ditto to what SamC said, if this is a new development have you changed anything in your brewing process? Equipment damaged in any way? Fermented the beer in a location where it's getting too warm?

Too hot of fermentation could definitely be it. I ferment in a glass carboy so plastic isnt the issue.

Its just hard to identify the flavor. I can best describe it as hairspray.

I've had this in the last two beers I made. Most people can't taste it. In fact people at the beer store thought it was a great beer. Myself my wife and a few others said hairspray right away. For me it's beyond annoying and is almost undrinkable. Luckily the flavor starts to diminish after a few sips.

I use a very large starter and thought maybe it could've been yeast flavors winding up in the beer. Using safale US 05 and it is only shows up in my IPAs. I had huge hop additions in both of these beers so gave a gentle squeeze to the bag when I pulled them out after the boil. All I can think of now is that maybe some unwanted oils came off from that?

Anyone else experienced this?

Hot fermentation definitely sounds like the issue. I usually get a yeasty flavor when I ferment too high. But you can also get a solvent smell/taste from it.

I imagine both of those flavors together would taste kind of like hairspray.

What is your fermentation temp? Do you cold crash?

I had a few beers that hit mid 80's during peak fermentation. It tasted gawd-awful. The flavor was more tolerable after a beer or two, but that's only because I was too trashed to care!

I'd recommend finding a cool place to ferm, 65-68F. Switch to white.labs liquid yeast.