Not to toot my own horn (which I'm about to do anyways), but I've had a pretty strong run in some inter-club homebrew competitions recently. Out of the last 3 competitions, I won two and took 3rd in another. Sadly a computer crash wiped all traces of one of the recipes (rye saison finished with brett) and all the pics of a 2nd (Vienna Lager, slight recipe re-formulation will make it onto the blog later this year), but you can see the Kolsch that took 3rd.

What does all this have to do with a Belgian Dubbel? Well, it was May 2017's style for the competition and since I brewed it back in October, I figure I should probably get around to writing it up. There are a few roads to take you to Dubbel City. You can go grain only with no candi sugar using just base and specialty malts; base malt with candi sugar/syrup for color and flavor; or a combo of base and specialty malts with sugar. For this beer, I did something I've never done before, I brewed a clone recipe from a website. Or to be more precise, I copied the grain bill exactly but used different hops and a different yeast that I particularly love. So maybe I didn't really brew a clone recipe. The grain bill was based off the Westvleteren 8 clone from the wonderful Candi Syrup, Inc website.