Single Hop IPA (Centennial) - Tasting

I brewed up this single hop IPA using Centennial hops about a month and a half ago.  This was based on a Bell's Two Hearted Clone.  I feel like I'm still learning a lot from using other people's recipes so I'm continuing to do these.  It is also nice to brew up single hop recipes like this to get a better handle on the contributions from each hop.  Brewing clones, even when I haven't had the beer, has also turned out nicely for me.

I've had some really great luck with IPAs so far.  Some of the best beers I've made so far have been heavily hopped.  Hops are a pretty amazing spice in general given all the different flavors you can get out of them.  Having a beer with a lot of late flavoring hops seems like a pretty clear cut way to get a great beer.

I took a few lessons from the Heady Topper clone I did a few months back and loaded up on post flameout hops to try to get intense hop flavor and aroma in this one.  It worked as expected but I may not have properly vetted some of the ingredients (hops and hop extract) I had been storing in the fridge.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Piney and citrusy hops dominate.  Maybe get a bit of caramel from the malt.  I don't really get any yeast or alcohol character from it as the hops are very potent.  Some of the first bottles I drank were the last ones filled which got a lot of hop particulate.  Those had an unpleasant grassy aroma.  This one, and other recent ones don't have that fortunately.  This is a pretty nice smelling beer.
• Appearance:
• Pours with a two finger head.  The foam lasts for quite a while and leaves lacing on the glass.  The beer is a dark gold and is fairly clear.
• Flavor:
• Up front I get some nice hop flavors (pine mostly) with a bit of sweet honey and caramel from the malt.  It finishes with a pretty pronounced bitterness which dominates.  I don't really care for the character of the bitterness.  It has odd (maybe off) flavor that lingers.  I'm a bit torn on whether this might be due to some oxidation in the beer.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium light bodied.  Pretty low carbonation.  A bit of sweetness in the finish.  Bitterness seems to have a slightly astringent component to it.  The finish is slightly harsh.
• Overall:
• Not really too happy with how this one turned out.  The odd flavor in the bitterness doesn't ruin the batch (I'm going to drink the rest of it) but it certainly detracts.  I suspect that the hop extract (which was admittedly not stored very well for the last 5 months) could have gotten a bit oxidized.  I used it in my Double IPA (which turned out great) and didn't notice this strange flavor.  That one did have a richer malt bill and more hops so it's possible that those masked this flavor and that this is how the extract is supposed to taste.  Anyway, it's an IPA so it's supposed to be bitter.  I shouldn't be complaining too much that it is.  I'm tempted to enter this into an upcoming local competition to get some unbiased opinions as to whether it tastes "off" to anyone else.