Some of the ingredients and equipment are of higher quality, but the methods really are not all that different from the monks of even 1000 years ago. How traditional do you want to be as well? Some research into the Reinheitsgebot of 1516, which restricted the ingredients of beer to water, barley, and hops may help you answer that question. Before that, traditionally beers would have this thing called gruit, which was a blend of herbs and spices, sometimes with some pretty nasty stuff in it, but not always. Note also, that the original Reinheitsgebot did not include yeast. This is because it wasn't known (until Louis Pasteur if I remember correctly) the role that yeast played. There was wild, spontaneous fermentation, and then reusing of the same equipment and fermentation vessels led to specific yeasts characterizing different areas and monasteries all without the knowledge of yeast's importance. The monks believed it was the spirit of the monastery or some such thing.
I don't know much about malting your own grain, but it certainly is possible, and brewers have been doing it for thousands of years. If you decide you don't want to go quite that traditional, note that Samuel Adams was not a brewer, but was actually a maltster, malting the grains for brewers. I guess my main point would be that the methods really have not changed all that much over beer's thousands of years of existence, but there has been quite a bit of change in ingredients and quality of ingredients and equipment.
I'm not trying to discourage you, so if you want to go ahead an malt your own grain, and ferment with wild yeast, more power to you! I'm sure there is info around here on malting your own grain, if you do a search, and for wild fermentation, be sure to check out this section:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/ If you end up making this beer, let us know how it turns out.