Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Werner Gourmet Meat Snacks - Honey Glazed

Werner Gourmet Meat Snacks - Honey GlazedWerner Gourmet Meat Snacks is a manufacturer of beef jerky, based out of Tillamook, OR. They've been in business since 1994. See my previous review of their Original variety.

The company makes beef jerky in their own USDA approved facility. Werner is also well known as a private labeler making beef jerky for other brands like Branding Iron, and Shalhoob Meat Co.

In addition to this whole muscle beef jerky, they also offer kippered beef steak, meat sticks, and chopped & formed.

Ingredients

Beef, brown sugar, honey, water, salt, spices, monosodium glutamate, garlic powder, sodium nitrite.

Taste

The first thing I taste from the surface of these pieces is a strong sweetness, and a light saltiness with some sucking. In the chewing, I continue to get more sweetness.

For being billed as a "Honey Glazed" variety, it certainly has a thick sweet flavor. And I think it does have a honey flavor in that sweetness. But I think for most snacking purposes, this comes off as just a strong sweet flavor.

The primary flavor of this jerky overall is that thick sweet flavor. Even in the chewing, I can pick up more sweetness in the meat itself, and that sweet continues all the way to the swallow, though it gradually loses strength at that point.

The saltiness is very light on the surface, and gains a little more strength in the chewing. But you won't really notice it until the latter half of chewing when the sweetness starts losing its strength.

I can see flecks of black pepper on these pieces, but I can't really taste any of it.

Nor can I taste any natural meat flavors.

After several eating several pieces, I do pick up a faint bit of garlic in the background.

Overall, what you're going to get out of this jerky is a heavy sweet flavor that gradually loses strength throughout the chewing, with a medium level saltiness that becomes more noticeable at the latter half of chewing.

Meat Consistency

This is a semi-moist jerky, but you could easily see it as dry. The surface is wet with a sticky sweet glaze. Tearing pieces apart is not necessary since these are cut into strips, which you can just bite off. It's still moderately easy to bite off, and chewing seems moderately easy as well.

The chewing texture starts off feeling somewhat hard, and there is also a bit of rubbery resistance. But it still seems to chew down to a soft mass fairly quickly. At that point, there's mostly a steak-like chewing texture, perhaps similar to a steak cooked medium. The sticky sweet glaze may actually make this jerky feel rather gummy, but I think the meat itself is not like that at all.

I found a few pieces with some small streaks of fat, but I didn't find any tendon or gristle. In fact, I didn't find any chewy sinews either. It's mostly pretty lean stuff.

The sticky sweet glaze does leave residue on my fingertips requiring a licking and wiping on my jeans. But biting pieces off doesn't cause any fragments to fall off.




Snack Value

I paid $12.99 for this six ounce package at a Sol Foods store in Springdale, UT. That works out to a price of $2.17 per ounce. Note that you can also purchase this online directly from Werner at almost a $1.00 per ounce, not counting shipping.

For general jerky snacking purposes, at the $2.17 price per ounce that I paid, this seems to provide a weak value. I get maybe a minimal snackability out of it, if anything the meat consistency is it's only strength. The $2.17 price per ounce is higher than what you'd pay in a grocery store, and yet, I'm getting little value in return.

As a "Honey Glazed" variety, at the same $2.17 price per ounce, it's a good value. I'm getting a lot of thick sweet flavor out of this, and it seems I can indeed find a honey flavor as well. If beef jerky candy is what you crave, I think you'll find it a good buy.

Rating

I'm giving this an average rating.

While I said I only get a minimal amount of snackability from this, I think it deserves at least an average rating just for living well up to its billing as a "Honey Glazed" variety. I know there are some jerky snackers who really love sweet, sweet jerky, and that's really what this product is intended for.

But for the rest of us all-purpose jerky aficionados, there isn't much to get out of this aside from a decent meat consistency and good chewing texture. The flavor is pretty bland, just a lot of sweet, and a moderate amount of salty.

My recommended beer pairing for this, a light bodied, but hoppy, IPA.

Rating: Average

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