It even easier.. Let yeast do the work of malting..
take grain, grind, ferment (ie, let yeast go to work) bake, and get bread.. bread gets stale, soak it in water, to make a kind of soup, soup ferments again, beer!

the honey and flavors could be added to the bread..
eventually some smart guy figures out how to bypass the bread making bit, and learns to malt.. i bet it was after so natural disaster, and the wife was saying 'the hell, you will! i keeping the good grain and the good bread for the kids!' and he went and found some almost ruined, wet, almost sprouted grain.. and beer as we know it was born..