Artisan Steak Tasting Goes to Tampa!

Okay, meat lovers and sustainability advocates, it's time to change the world.

After three successful steak tastings in the San Francisco area this summer, we're taking The Oliver Ranch Company's Artisan Beef Institute(r) "Provenance of Beef(tm)" program on the road.

First stop was Tampa, Florida, where Jaden Hair aka SteamyKitchen helped gather fellow food writers and enthusiasts for a tasting of 6 different styles of natural or organic artisan beef. Read her hilarious and insightful write up, also part of www.FoodBuzz.com 24/24/24 blog series. (That's her photo, too, she's amazing.)

Other than the delicious beef, the big hit of the evening was our tasting guide. Host a steak tasting in your home and you'll soon find that we just don't have a lot of words to describe a steak. Beefy, meaty, juicy, tender, and maybe gamy come to mind but not much else.

Also, your beefy might be my gamy, which can be very confusing.

So the guide is meant to help you evaluate which style of beef you like best -- which ranch or combination of breed, growing region, diet, and aging technique appeals most to your taste buds and why.

While we're not quite at the Robert Parker or wine wheel stage, nor do we want beef to be as complicated as wine, we'd love to share our tasting guide. Just email me carrie [at] oliverranch [dot] com.

We'll also send you the tasting guide with any order from our main marketplace, The Oliver Ranch Company (www.oliveranch.com).

How will this change the world?

Truth is, simple labels such as grass-fed or grain-fed or for that matter USDA Select, Choice, or Prime don't come close to telling you what the beef will taste like or how tender it will be, let alone whether it will suit your personal palate.

While marbling is important, flavor and texture can also vary considerably by breed, growing region, diet, age of cattle, the particular husbandry protocols of the rancher or lot operator, low stress handling, and the aging technique (if any) used by the butcher.

The industry doesn't want us to know all this stuff matters because they want to keep things simple for themselves.

But if YOU know it and YOU find it important to know what style of beef is on your plate and who raised it and how, then we can collectively support ranchers or processors with best practices.

We get cleaner, more flavorful, even personalized meat. Ranchers can stay on the land. Workers can have safer jobs. The land can get healthier.

It's a win-win-win no matter how you look at it.

The Provenance of Beef - Let The Steak Tastings Begin!

Sometimes dreams do come true, and this one was mine.

60 people were on hand - we sold out twice! - as we formally launched our Artisan Beef Institute to the public in tandem with the highly regarded Commonwealth Club of California's 3rd Annual "How We Eat" series.

In the planning for nearly 3 years, The Artisan Beef Institute's(r) "Provenance of Beef(tm)" series combines an interactive expert panel discussion and comparison steak tasting.

Now mind you, this wasn't about tasting different cuts of "Choice" or "Prime" steaks. Designed to appeal to those seeking to support great ranchers and sustainability, this was something entirely new, was one heck of a lot of fun, and as one guest commented, "made me smarter about beef than anyone else I know, how cool is that?!"

The evening began with an interactive expert panel discussing how individual ranchers, butchers, and chefs influence the taste and texture of beef to create connoisseur quality on the plate.

Then, participants were taken through a blind taste test of four different “styles” of beef from different natural ranches, each representing a different breed, region, diet, and aging technique. Guests were encouraged to use a brand new tasting guide developed by ABI (let's face it, meaty, beefy, juicy, and tender pretty much sums up our vocabulary when it comes to beef).

Q&A with members of the panel follows along with a full four-course meal, including wine pairings from Napa’s Atalon Vineyards.

Importantly, panelists stressed how low stress management techniques and sustainable land management aren't just the right things to do, they contribute directly to beef flavor, quality, and texture. (I argue that connoisseur quality beef is by definition raised with care and respect.)

The main takeaway? Relying on USDA Grade or labels such as organic or grass-fed is not enough. No different than with wine, to enjoy genuinely natural or organic, connoisseur quality beef, you need to know the source and to know the details of what is on the plate: the breed, diet, growing region and the husbandry, harvesting, processing and aging techniques.

The other fun takeaway? I just love this as I’ve seen it anecdotally over three years of blind steak tastings but this was a big enough crowd to gauge the statistical probabilities.

When asked to vote for their favorite, the scores were evenly distributed between the four ranches / beef styles.

So there you have it: There is no such thing as the perfect steak!

But there IS a perfect steak for you.

Here are the styles we tasted. Three are in our marketplace www.oliverranch.com and the other, from the fabulous Mac Magruder in Potter Valley, CA, can be found at Café Rouge in Berkeley, Woodlands Market in Kentfield, and on the menu at Oliveto in Berkeley.

• Dry-Aged Charolais, grain-finished, Elliott & Ferris Families, Front Range Region, CO


• Dry-Aged Black Angus-Shorthorn Cross, grass-only, Mac Magruder, Potter Valley, CA


• Wet-Aged Wagyu-Angus Cross, grain-finished, Kobe Beef America, finished in Holdrege, NE


• Wet-Aged Holstein-Friesian, grain-finished, Bob Beechinor, Bakersfield, CA