James Ready 5.5
Moosehead Breweries Ltd.

James Ready 5.5James Ready 5.5
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From:
Moosehead Breweries Ltd.
 
New Brunswick, Canada
Style:
American Lager
Ranked #300
ABV:
5.5%
Score:
69
Ranked #28,098
Avg:
2.78 | pDev: 24.46%
Reviews:
22
Ratings:
50
Status:
Active
Rated:
Aug 20, 2023
Added:
Aug 01, 2005
Wants:
  2
Gots:
  17
No description / notes.
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Ratings by Moontang:
Photo of Moontang
Reviewed by Moontang from Canada (ON)

1.66/5  rDev -40.3%
look: 3 | smell: 2 | taste: 1 | feel: 3 | overall: 1.5
I have had more bottles of this stuff than I'd care to count, mostly because it's often the only free beer available at school events. Here's the breakdown.

Appearance:
I've only ever drunk it straight from the bottle, and as such, I am not certain whether the appearance appeals to me or doesn't. From what I can tell through the bottle and some of the times I or others with me have spilled it, it is on the light side of medium, I would say a bit darker than most lagers. Foams up with big bubbles, and doesn't leave much of a fine lacing pattern behind. The head is a bit resilient, and it takes a bit of time and tapping the bottle for me to get at the beer itself.

Smell:
The smell is unremarkable, just mildly acrid and acidic, with no sign of any grain flavour.

Taste:
This is where the beer really fails, as it is incredibly hoppy in front, with an unpleasant sting I feel all over my body, and it does not redeem itself with its aftertaste, which is weak at best and far too fizzy most of the time

Mouthfeel:
It feels like I'm drinking a very fizzy soda, but I'm usually distracted by that godafwul taste to notice what it feels like.

Drinkability:
The taste sinks it, and the only reason it doesn't get a 1 flat here is that it has a decent alcohol content for a cheap beer, and it doesn't cost a lot for the distance it gets me to bombed.
Jun 03, 2009
More User Ratings:
 
Rated: 2.62 by MakerMachiav from England

Aug 20, 2023
Photo of ClemFandango
Reviewed by ClemFandango

3.69/5  rDev +32.7%
look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 4
I’m rating this strictly as it’s promoted in Ontario as a Value Brand.
It blows all of the other value brands out of the water .
When I’m feeling like a non- craft beer cheap 6 pack. This is my go to. My wife who is not a beer drinker appreciates this as a cheaper once in awhile.
Aug 13, 2023
 
Photo of VandilioffReborn
Reviewed by VandilioffReborn from Canada (ON)

4.08/5  rDev +46.8%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4.5
James Ready 5.5 November 2022

Poured cold into a pub style lager glass; This lager pour's with roaring snap crackle pop carbonation. Large bubbles in the glass float up into a big fluffy sticky merangue white head.
From 2ft away I can smell a burst of grassy barn yard funk with hints of skunk and nesting. A blend of straw and Cascade hops are all over the nose. I like it! Its everything off the farm except corn and that's mighty fine.
Taste is coming alive in the glass. A bigger lager beer that has a bit of spice in its simple hop bite against light biscuit and cracker 2 row malts.
The combination of light might and salt and peppery hops coat the roof of the mouth and finish of with an bite just short of astringent.
This staple beer of James Ready Brewing company hasn't lost it touch. I could easily see from the past Navy personell in the harbour in Halifax with a round table full of glasses ordering this by the table full with salted herrings.
James Ready 5.5 is a fine lager beer. I could see this beer going well also with a heaping plate of spaghetti and meatballs.
Nov 13, 2022
 
Rated: 1.12 by Adam_stewart from Canada (ON)

Oct 03, 2020
 
Rated: 2.91 by Isaac_L95 from Canada (ON)

Jul 05, 2020
Photo of biboergosum
Reviewed by biboergosum from Canada (AB)

2.85/5  rDev +2.5%
look: 3.75 | smell: 3 | taste: 2.75 | feel: 3 | overall: 2.5
355ml single can, part of the 8-packs they suddenly showed up in around Alberta this past week. Thanks, Nova Scotia!

This beer pours a clear, bright pale golden yellow colour, with four fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and fizzy bone-white head, which leaves some random electrical resistance pattern lace around the glass as it eventually blows off.

It smells of gritty and grainy pale malt, a not unsubstantial rice and corn breakfast cereal thing, dead yeast cells, a bit of wan stale apple and pear fruitiness, and some quite underwhelming leafy, weedy, and skunky floral green hop bitters. The taste is skanky 'verdant' hops (hard to differentiate, so I'm not gonna), grainy and bready pale malt, more well-obfuscated cheap cereal notes, mildly soused-up pome fruit esters, a still stupidly extant yeastiness, and more plain leafy, musty, and floral noble hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly active in its swirling and churning frothiness, the body an adequate medium weight, and not particularly smooth, as the committee in charge of such seems to have overlooked the skank factor here. It finishes off-dry, the bland malt and heretofore basically hidden alcohol making a shitty day of it.

Overall - yeah, this is nothing more than a simulacrum of those laughable 'icebeers' that flooded the market twenty-something years ago. A bit of a mess, is my understatement of the week, and I'm sticking to it!
Aug 19, 2017
Photo of mynie
Reviewed by mynie from Maryland

3.15/5  rDev +13.3%
look: 3 | smell: 3 | taste: 3.25 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3
This is like Moosehead Strong? Or something?

Half liter can. Artwork meant to evoke some kind of European shithole. Vaguely Scottish, I think, but I'm an idiot so that doesn't mean a goddamn thing.

Pours adjunct lager pale with a wee little wisp of a head. Smells like an American blonde, lacking the distinct cereal nodes of most Canadian lagers. Tastes more Canuky than it smells, but still not very distinctive. There's some light peat and spice nodes, but otherwise it's nearly indistinguishable from, say, Coors heavy. Sweet cereal, light fruit, very little by way of hops. Not bad, though.
Dec 30, 2016
 
Rated: 2.58 by BaconTorpedo from Canada (ON)

Aug 09, 2016
 
Rated: 2.75 by GoHabsGo from Canada (ON)

May 12, 2016
 
Rated: 3.34 by MChris from Germany

Apr 04, 2016
 
Rated: 2.75 by fortyfield from Canada (ON)

Jan 26, 2016
Photo of Crisleroen
Rated by Crisleroen

1.8/5  rDev -35.3%
look: 3.5 | smell: 1.5 | taste: 1.75 | feel: 1.75 | overall: 1.75
James Ready: Really bad hangover ....
May 09, 2015
Photo of Pmicdee
Rated by Pmicdee from Canada (ON)

3.5/5  rDev +25.9%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5
Jan 30 2023
Apr 08, 2015
 
Rated: 2.67 by Leighmack

Jan 14, 2015
 
Rated: 2.31 by Tyler_V2 from Canada (ON)

Jan 05, 2015
 
Rated: 3.17 by Nicolette10895 from New Jersey

Sep 07, 2014
 
Rated: 1.9 by slackt

Sep 02, 2014
 
Rated: 2.75 by Devon_ from Canada (ON)

Aug 12, 2014
James Ready 5.5 from Moosehead Breweries Ltd.
Beer rating: 69 out of 100 with 50 ratings