Old beers and hop flavour turning you off

[brokendownyota]

Good evening gents

I'm fairly new to brewing, and am in the middle of a transition to all-grain (BIAB) brewing. A part of my process has been to buy craft brews in the 22oz bombers to try everything I can get my hands on and get an idea as to what I'd like to brew.

Note: i'm in Canada, so most American craft brews are going to be old.

When I first started tastig craft IPA's, I thought they were my favourite I tried a few and LOVED them. The one I really enjoyed were;

Howe Sound - Total eclipse of the hop
Howe Sond - Devils Elbow
Red Racer IPA
Cloak and Dagger Cascadian Dare Ale
Dogzilla Black IPA

So with this decided, I ordered a bunch of kit and started brewing. My first brew was a Coopers IPA kit, brewed with an additional 3oz of Cascade, and a bunch of DME and dextrose. It's fantstic and I'm enjoying it immensely.

Fast forward to last night, a few friends come over and bring a couple of bottles to :try. Something unexpected happens when we open the first IPA:

I hate it. I mean gag put the glass down, and wonder WTF is happening hate it Absoutely wrong in every way. It's hot with alcohol, leaves a horribly bitter, disgusting aftertaste, and is one of the most foul beverage I've ever had te misfortune of imbibing. That beer was Green Flash's :Imperial IPA.

Not to be thrown off immediately, I check ratebeer to look at the revie - 91% Alright, somethng is wrong with this bottle. But then the damndest thing happens.

The rest of the IPA's we drink, that partcularly offensive taste comes to the surface and is all I can concentrate on. Up until this night, I have loved every single IPA I've tried, and now I'm 0/4 The other guys strongly disliked the Green Flash, but only noted a taste of orange peel, and not the offensive, sickening aftertaste that caught me. We were all sharing the same bottle (from glasses, of course).

Has one offensive beer thrown you off a style? Is it just coincidence that the beers bought that night al used the same hops that I dislike? Do older IPA's/IIPA's keep their bitterness and lose the pleasant hop flavours?

I'm not sure what to think. I've got hops in the freezer for a kit I'm planing on brewing tomorrow, so I took a sniff of them (warrior, chinook, simcoe) and I can that particular flavour in all of them. Previously, when I smelled my Cascade, I was in LOVE with the smell.

Is this simply an intense example of the difference between hops, or do tey all have the same underlying taste

I'm a bit wrried that I've thrown myself off IPA's simply by reconizing a small part of the flavour that I dislike strongly, but hadn't noticed before. Anyone care to weight in?

-Scott

edit: Typed on my netbook, so ignore spelling/typos. It's hard to write on this thing.

 

[kaconga]

Hops in the bag are not the same as hops in the beer. Yeast does things to hops that enhances some flavors while minimizing others. Try taking a break from IPAs for a week and come back. Often times we dislike something more in a certain context than as an absolute.

 

[harrydrez]

Greenflash imperial? The one with the yellow label? I think that's one of those beers that people either like or really don't like. Hopped with summit and nugget all the way through, it's intense. I like it when it's fresh.

 

[brokendownyota]

yeah, the one with the yellow label. Not only did I hate it, but I hated every IPA I drank after it. Is it Nugget that tastes that way?