I've entered a friendly competition where each participant is randomly assigned the ingredients they can use. While I have to stick to these, they can be used in any amount. Here is what I was assigned:
Any idea what styles might work well for these ingredients?
Well, working through the ingredients :
Grist - you could do a pale ale with just a pinch of the other grains, but really it's looking like an amber ale of some kind - going dark into porter/stout territory would need to use some of your extra ingredients. You've got to watch out for the speciality malts overwhelming your fruit/flowers - this could be a bug or a feature!
Palisade Hops - not used them, but AIUI they're quite "British" - but could be used in eg something Belgian, or use them for bittering with more obviously "New World" hops for flavouring
Edible Flowers - my immediate thought was the "vegetable" flowers like globe artichokes, cauliflower and broccoli (both sprouting and calabrese), but I'm not sure you really want any of them near a beer! It would be a talking point though! I'm not sure if the colour from purple sprouting broccoli or purple cauliflower would persist into beer, might be fun if you can use them for colouring.
However, I'd suggest elderflowers would be the outstanding choice for flavour if you can get hold of them (dried??), or maybe you can get elderflower syrup and claim it represents your flowers plus one additional ingredient ("syrup")? Syrup seems to work better than dry-flowering from what I can tell.
Otherwise hibiscus seem to be popular, particularly in sours, or roses?!? lavender?!? Also cloves are flower buds and saffron is stigmas, so both could count? A saffron beer might be quite fun.
Mango - hmm, haven't we had enough of the tropical thing in beers? Could overwhelm any flowers if done in quantity, unless it was eg saffron used mostly for colouring. Easy match for additional tropical hops like Galaxy.
Imperial A31 Tartan Yeast - assuming this is like WLP028, it's a great yeast for most British styles.
So all in all, it's looking rather British, the mango is a bit awkward but not impossible, you do get fruited British beers these days.
I think my first choice would be to keep the speciality malts low and go for a goldenish 4.2% British ale heavy on elderflower syrup and lighter on mango - maybe bump it up with some modern British hops or maybe another flower? Depends on you getting elderflower though.
Second choice would be something stronger with a bit more rye etc, an American amber with saffron and mango, with additional tropical hops.
Depends a bit on your clubmates, I suspect fewer will have had an elderflower golden ale, but the colour of a saffron & mango amber should also be memorable even if the flavour is perhaps more familiar to them! These competitions are all about sticking out and being memorable - so maybe the answer is the elderflower beer coloured with saffron!
