Frustration Black IPA tasting

Time for my first tasting post! I was kind of half dreading, half excited for the first taste of this beer given the ordeal I went through in making it. The plan with this one was to go big on the hops and big on the roasted malt -- trying to create something with all the heavy flavors of a stout and a nice full hop bill as well. I used a bunch of Chinook, as I had read it's known for piney and earthy characteristics. Centennial was the backing hop, thinking it might add a bit of citrus, but not as much as Cascade, or something in that vein. I used Columbus to bitter for a nice clean bite, and I dry hopped with it also, mostly just because I was curious what flavors it would bring to the mix.

Appearance: Black. Entirely opaque. As a result, no notes on clarity. Pours a very nice inch think toffee colored head which quickly recedes to a thin covering. Leaves nice lacing on the rim of the glass, likely the roasted barley helped in this department.

Aroma: There's a piney, earthy hop smell that lures you in. Definite chocolate notes in there as well. When it was young, I smelled a bit of alcohol in it. That's faded in the past few weeks, as has the hop aroma.

Taste: Lot's of hop bitterness and roasty, chocolate grains. No floral notes at all -- which I would expect from the Centennial. I mostly taste the clean bitterness from the Columbus addition at the beginning of the boil. The bitterness was incredibly harsh when it was first bottled, but it has mellowed quite a bit and it blends into some of the bitter aspects of the dark grains.

Next time around on this recipe, I might decrease the roasted grain a bit. I'll probably leave the Columbus in there -- it did it's job well. The Centennial was pretty lackluster. I think I'll swap it out for a more floral hop, likely Cascade. I'll keep Chinook in there, but pull down the weight of it with respect to the Cascade or other floral hop. Columbus dry hopping worked out pretty well for the initial aroma, but it faded very quickly. Probably lost a few bottles worth of beer from absorption loss in the dry hops. Overall, I'm pretty happy with this beer. It's not a easy drinking, slugging beer, but it definitely has some complexity to it.