Estery Flavors after conditioning

[gcdowd]

So about 9 weeks ago I brewed up an IPA, below is the recipe:

6 lbs light LME
3 lbs light DME
1 lb crystal 15L (steeped for 30 mins at 155 degrees)

1 oz Columbus @ 60 min
1 oz Cascade @ 20 min
1 oz Cascade @ 5 min
1 oz Amarillo @ flameout

Re-hydrated 1 packet of Safale-05 and pitched at around 70 degrees.

Fermenation: 3 weeks in the primary, ambient temp was about 65-66 degrees. After two weeks in the primary, I dry-hopped with 1 oz Cascade and 1 oz Amarillo and left it for another week.

Bottled it up for 3 weeks. After 3 weeks in the bottles, I put a few in the fridge to taste. They were awesome. Over the next 2 weeks, I had another here and there and they were great. This past Sunday I opened one up and instead of a nice hop aroma, I get kind of a fruity smell. I taste, a little bit fruity....guessing it's an estery flavor. Two more bottles had the same flavor profile. My first thought was that I underpitched, but at the advice of others on here, I was told one packet of dry yeast was enough for my OG of 1.068 (FG was 1.012). My next thought was that when I siphoned into the bottling bucket, I wasn't as careful to make sure no hop crud got into the bottles (some did I believe, as there seems to be a more bottle sediment than normal). Anyway, is there any reason why this flavor would just be coming out now? Can anything cause an estery flavor this late in the game?

 

[ArcaneXor]

Beers evolve over time, and different flavor compounds change in different ways and at different rates. For example, I've had a Hefeweizen turn from something that tasted strongly like bananas and vanilla to something that tasted like an apple cider.
With IPAs, you have the advantage of "refreshing" some of the volatile hop character by dry-hopping the beer again, but of course that is only possible when kegging.

Another possibility is, of course, an infection. But that's unlikely unless other symptoms are present as well (pellicle-ring, gushing, etc).

 

[gcdowd]

Yeah, doubt it's an infection. Guess I'll just have to deal, it's not undrinkable. Could the hops be breaking down in the bottles and causing this?