Getting back to the "house flavor" comments, I get that from quite a few breweries. A lot of times that is a yeast thing, but it could definitely be coming from base malt as well.
Unless it's horrible, I generally enjoy it when a brewery has a house character. It kind of ties their line together and gives you some familiarity with their brews. Its also nice as a homebrewer because you can replicate that character in your own brews. For example, I didn't realize that Harpoon uses WLP005, but the first time I brewed with it that character was clear as day.