Help with common acrid off taste in mutliple brews

Hi Everyone,

I'm having an issue. I have brewed two IPAs, a porter and a saison. The two IPAs I used Safeway bought water and they turned out wonderful. However, with the porter I used brita filtered water (the tap water in my area is hard) and Arrowhead spring water for the saison.

For both the saison and the porter I have obtained the same smelling and tasting beer. Its hard to put a definitive description on the smell and taste other than it is acrid, harsh and when tasted has a very long and lingering off taste. I checked the off-taste websites and I cannot really match any of the common off-tastes with whats happened to my two brews. I brewed the IPAs in between the porter and saison and followed the same sterilization procedure for all four beers. My beer does not appear to contain any bacterial contamination.

Therefore my question is - could the water have such a dramatic effect on the beer and result in both beers developing this profile. I've left the porter for 3 months now and unfortunately the taste has not improved.

I plan on going back to the water source I tried for the IPA but it would be great to get any ideas/suggestions and opinions of other people who may have had this experience.

Thanks everyone