That's according to the 15th-century strict definition by the English that "ale" include no hops or other additives. This probably had to do with an early inter

That's according to the 15th-century strict definition by the English that "ale" include no hops or other additives. This probably had to do with an early interpretation of hops as bad for you, since it made people tired or sleepy. Modern definitions make "beer" a general category that includes both ale and lager, and allow for either ales or lagers to include hops or not, just like they can be either top- or bottom-fermenting (though they usually stick to their respective category's defaults) The fact is that different yeasts growing at different temperatures for different amounts of time with different additives could have resulted in vastly different beers, and while we have an idea what a more likely production method could be, it doesn't discount the idea that brewers could have experimented for hundreds of years and developed different styles. So we really don't know for sure what ancient beer tasted like.