Recipe definitely looks different. I've started putting the ingredients on my next order...
Here are some resources and recipes. Special interest should be taken on everything that Susann verberg posts, she wrote some very good papers and did the scientific research for that.
Yes, hops were pretty foreign to the UK until the 1500s, until introduced by Germans who brought their "Bier." At that time, "ale" was essentially pure fermented cereal grain, or "gruit" if herbs and spices were introduced. I have several historic recipe books from the 1500s onward, but mostly regarding mead and wine; although one mentions several personal beer/gruit recipes from Washington,Franklin etc - a molasses beer, chestnut beer, and a pine beer.
I experimented with mugwort amounts in my stout. Even in a big imperial, 0.5oz is the most I can use and not have it overpower the beer.
Yeah, according to historical memes. Did you imagine for some reason Humulus lupulus failed to colonise the British Isles after the last ice age? Really? Based on what? The probability of that idea being true is vanishingly small, given its native ecology in Europe and conditions for it to thrive naturally in Britian. Either you want to brew something potentially comparable to what might have been brewed in areas of medieval Europe or you just want to believe you are brewing something comparable. There's a very big difference. Propaganda and other biases are unlikely to lead you anywhere interesting based on reality. It's not like Europeans invented beer. Especially those barbaric trolls in the north. At the time humanity documented developed brewing practices, in the Middle East, Europeans were still colonising Europe and throwing rocks at each other.
