>>40685680 (OP)modern filtered beer has basically no magical properties and has the spiritual potency of wonderbread. it's basically an industrial byproduct of livestock feed at this point.
old beer/ale was typically full of nutrients and lower abv and not ultra-filtered like the modern shit, though stronger brews and finer filtering could be achieved, it was just much more expensive to do so.
hops are also cheap phytoestrogenic trash used as a preservative, they've been around for a while but if you want the real hyperborean semen of freyr type shit you have to brew your own and use gruit and add magic herbs like meadowsweet, there were a lot of different things people would add for medicinal or magical properties. you want ale, as in alu, as in unhopped beer. im assuming you're thinking of it in a northern european context.
some even say that for certain rituals special ales may have been brewed that spiked with nightshades like henbane or mandrake. not recommended as they are extremely poisonous. others say they may have had amanita muscaria added, look into kvass.
