This may be a harebrained idea but here goes!
I was wondering about blending an ale yeast strain with a lager yeast strain to see what kind of influence I can achieve. Not sure which strains to blend but my thought is to ferment on the warmer side to coax the fruitiness from the lager strain whereby the ale strain will perform “normal”.
Am I nuts wasting time and resources or is this viable to achieve a favorable outcome?
Has anyone tried this themselves? Worth it or waste of effort?
My experience is that it is uncontrollable and unpredictable. Personally I don’t like to brew like that.
I’ve never tried it and certainly defer to Denny’s experience.
But…
This is your hobby and whatever makes it fun for you. Whatever keeps the fire burning. Personally, it sounds like a neat little experiment and might be fun to run the mix out for a few batches. Or not. 
The more you repitch, one of 2 things happens…it either gets more unpredictable or one strain takes over. If that’s OK with you, then no problem.
I like unpredictable. It’s the unknown that may produce a positive outcome, similar to natural selection itself. I will assume that you have tried blending both types of yeast? Which brings me to your own yeast strain. How did you produce it?
White Labs makes an Ale Lager blend.
In regards to blending yourself, I think unpredictable maybe tantamount to unreproducible.
I have tried ale and lager, 2 lager, 2 American ale and 2 Belgian ale.
I didn’t produce 1450. I found it online when I started banking yeast 23 years ago and saved it from extinction.
That has been my experience. Wyeast, for instance, encourages people to blend, but point out that unpredictability, especially in future generations.
I don’t like unpredictable. I like to control what’s happening with my beer. To each, their own.
I never said I didn’t want control over my brewing. Any serious brewer would and I count myself as a serious brewer. I’m talking about moving outside that paradigm and experimenting with the unknown.
I apologize if that came off as an insult. It certainly wasn’t intended that way. I find your statement kinda contradictory…you say you want control, but you also want to give up control. Again, that’s fine. We don’t all have to brew the same way.
No harm no foul. I believe I was clear of my intent on first post though. Sometimes intentional mistakes produce good results or at least in this case, I will find out.
It sounds like an interesting experiment. If it keeps the hobby fun, do it. You don’t need permission or approval from anyone. I, for one, would love to hear how you make out.
Cool! I was hoping for some input from anyone who has tried it and their outcome.
I have often done split batches with two different yeasts. That’s a great way to compare the differences that each one makes. You could do that and then blend them a little at a time to see what you get.
Which, IMO, is the best way to do it.
I don’t think I have ever blended lager yeasts with ale yeasts, but I have often blended yeasts when targeting specific combinations of characteristics. My best beers I’ve made are almost always from yeast blends. (And less frequently, some of my worst beers too, TBH.)
I’ve taken some blends out to 5-7 generations, with reasonable consistency. Some drift quickly, but some stay pretty close to the original blend. I usually try to match reproductive speed & lag for that reason.
Do it! Best case scenario: your best beer ever. Worst case scenario: probably still a drinkable beer.
I love it and do it often but never go past it repitch. Some of my best beers have been from blends. Do it and don’t let them talk you out of it.
What if you made the most delicious beer on planet earth, but had no way to duplicate it?
I am no biologist and I certainly appreciate the yeast propigating vendors out there. Is this blending/grafting akin to the Lallemand Novalager yeast now marketed? I have had wonderful results with Novalager. Again - I have no biology background and may be missing the point entirely. Novalager worked well out to about 8 total re-pitches for me (I quit at that point to brew some ales that I had been holding off brewing to see how well the re-pitched Novalager would go…)