Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Oh Boy! Oberto - Hickory Beef Jerky

Oh Boy! Oberto Beef Jerky HickoryOh Boy! Oberto enjoys the largest market share of beef jerky sales in the USA, and it's largely due to its branding, as well as its bright, eye-catching, packaging. The brand only makes a handful of beef jerky varieties, and despite it's rather small and ordinary offerings, the brand manages to outsell all other brands.

It doesn't necessarily make great beef jerky, but it's still good enough to satisfy most snackers.

Hickory smoked-beef jerky is something you don't see as often anymore, with mesquite smoke flavoring taking over much of the varieties now. But hickory is a type of smoke flavoring that I happen to like very much, and I personally think has an aroma that goes really well with jerky.

Ingredients

Beef, brown sugar, dextrose, sugar, salt, hydrolized corn and soy protein, natural hickory smoke flavor, corn syrup, water, vinegar, flavorings, molasses, sodium erythorbate, caramel color, citric acid, sodium nitrite.

Taste

There definitely is a hickory smoke flavor to this variety. But after that, I mostly taste a combination of sweet and salt.

These pieces are slightly on the salty side, which makes my mouth feel just ever so dry. I never cared much for salty jerky because it tends to shadow the other flavorings. But in this case, there isn't much else to taste.

As for natural meat flavors, I can taste some, but not much. I can actually taste more than Jack Link's, or Bridgford, the second and third biggest selling jerky brands, but I don't think that's what put Oberto at the top. You pretty much have to think hard about detecting the meat flavors.

Overall, this variety of hickory flavored beef jerky doesn't taste bad at all, it just doesn't offer much for the beef jerky lover, and who ever thought Oh Boy! Oberto was a brand for jerky lovers anyways?

Meat Consistency

These appear to be cuts of real beef muscle, sliced in average thickness, and in medium to small pieces.

For the most part, these pieces are dry, but still easy enough to tear apart and chew. Some of the smaller pieces I found were a little more moist. Overall, I didn't find any pieces that put up a fight.

Pretty much all of the pieces in this bag appear to be very lean; I found only one piece that had a few small pieces of fat. I didn't find any tendon or gristle.

Oh Boy! Oberto - Hickory Beef Jerky

Stater Bros. Beef Jerky - Original

Product Value

I paid $4.99 for this four ounce bag at a Stater Bros. grocery store in Menifee, CA, which works out to $1.25 per ounce, putting this in the average price range.

I think this beef jerky offers a pretty good value for the general beef jerky snacker. It's easy to eat, and offers a good taste. It does live up to its billing as a hickory flavored jerky, albeit flavored with some kind of liquid smoke no doubt. Still, it's a decent beef jerky.

Rating

Oh Boy! Oberto Beef Jerky HickoryI'm giving this an average rating.

While it provides a great beef jerky experience, and it lives up to its billing as a hickory flavored jerky, it just doesn't offer much else. As with all Oh Boy! Oberto brands, it's really just an average jerky designed for the bulk of snack food eaters.

I think some extra garlic, and a bit of black pepper, would give this some more complexity that might make me want to savor this more.

Rating: Average

eBay Beef Jerky Store

3 comments:

  1. This was all the store had at the time and was it NASTY!! Nice taste at first and then real salty and chewed up in to a mushy mass I can't stand mushy jerky YUK!!!!

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  2. Agree with the above comment, Oh Boy! Oberto Oh Sucks! Too mushy and humid.

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  3. Lowe's now carries this for $4.40 and it isn't as bad as all that. I completely agree with the review--an average bulk jerky with decent flavor and good chew-ability.

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