I started brewing in the mid-90s at a Brew-On-Premise in Chicago. One of the recipes that my buds and I made there was called Dubbelfest. We had no idea why it was called that. It does not appear to have anything to do with a Belgian Dubbel, as far as I can see. Eventually the BOP went out of business and that started my homebrewing in 1999. I tried to contact the BOP owner for the recipe but couldn't find him. I searched and found a company called Cask Brewing in Canada that had a bunch of beers listed on their site and they were numbered the same way the recipes were numbered at the BOP. I sent an email to someone named Jamie Gordon at Cask and he sent me a recipe that was extract (as was the BOP recipe) and it was also for 50 liters and in metric (grams, liters, etc). I tried making it many years ago but the fact that the recipe needed to be 40% (ish) of the one he gave me and also the conversions... I must have messed it up. What he gave me was this...
6 liters light lager extract
2 liters MEQ (not really sure what this is)
800 grams of dextrose
400 grams crystal malt (no more info)
85 grams roasted barley
30 grams Northern Brewer for 45
30 grams Hallertau for 15
20 grams Saaz at flameout
eight 2-3" cinnamon sticks at flameout (at flameout, add the Saaz and cinnamon, put the lid on the pot and steep for 15 mins)
25 grams SafBrew Ale yeast
I tried this a few times and whiffed mainly because I tried using some Belgian strains of yeast because I didn't know any better. My guess is that SafBrew ale yeast is a neutral yeast like US-05. The beer we made at the BOP was not "Belgiany". So after 13 years of having this recipe, I'm going to try it again with 1056. I put this recipe together from the one above...
10 lbs Rahr Pale Ale malt
.33 pounds (about 5.3 oz) Crystal 40L
1 oz Midnight Wheat or Debittered black malt
.5 oz Northern Brewer 9.5% for 45
.5 oz Hallertau 4.3% for 15
.3 oz Saaz 4% at flameout
1 tsp ground cinnamon added at flameout
Wyeast 1056
OG: 1.058, FG: 1.015, IBU: 22, SRM: 10, ABV: 5.5%
I don't like the idea of adding the dextrose/corn sugar so I'm going to leave it out. Not sure how much character it added to the beer or whether it was just for gravity. This beer (when made properly) is really delicious and very unusual. I tried to make it 3-4 times in the past and eventually gave up. I can't find any search results for DUBBELFEST besides one from my site where I mention it in a recipe. If anyone sees anything wrong with my math or conversions, let me know. Making this beer in the next few weeks. Cheers.