I have not brewed a good hoppy beer in years. Stay with me here...
I typically brew the recipes out of Brewing Classic Styles, and it has served me well for a long time. Some of my favorite recipes in there are the American Pale Ale, American IPA and the West Coast Blaster (hoppy amber). The first time I brewed these up they were killer.
Then, I rebrewed...and rebrewed...and rebrewed again. All of them duds.
I have been searching for the reason for going on 3 years now. I finally veered away from super-hoppy beers and made some really good examples (my Cal Common was particularly good) of other styles. So, with a renewed sense of confidence in my brewing ability, I tried the American Pale Ale recipe again. Dud. Total drain material.
The one factor that is different between my successes and failures on these beers is the Horizon hop. When I first brewed the recipes, I could not get Horizon hops in my area, so I was substituting other hops in. When Horizon finally became available, I started using them and following the recipes to the letter.
Is it possible that I simply don't like the results that a Horizon-based beer gives? I find the bitterness almost totally lacking (the recipe should be coming in at 40 IBU, and I am taking into account AA% when I scale the recipe to my system) and the beer tastes very dull (I have messed with the water in about every configuration you can think of. This time I landed at Bru N Water's Pale Ale Profile). I have looked around to see if others have had issues with this hop variety, but no, all I'm finding are articles about how wonderful they are.