Would it taste like beef?
Chicken.
It tastes a lot like elk.
A lot like mutton. A lot of venison’s flavor comes from what the animal eats. If your’e close to a ranch or a farm they will eat as much alfalfa as they can. In the wilds they browse like a goat. I like the liver if the animal lives off pine, but not so much if it eats sagebrush/juniper.
It seems that the larger a deer species is the milder and less gamey it tastes. On the average, Elk is less gamey than deer. Moose tastes very mild, almost like beef but with much less fat. If you’ve eaten Yak then you know what moose tastes like.
If someone is offering you a venison dish, take a bit and try it for yourself. It has it’s own flavor. I don’t think it tastes like chicken, or beef, or pork. It’s got a stronger “gamier” flavor, but prepared well, it’s good stuff. (It’s very good as a stew or sausage, and cooked with carrots and parsley) I’ll put it another way. Deer meat tastes as much like beef as wild duck tastes like chicken, or catfish like canned Chicken-of-the-Sea tuna.
I was about to say a similar thing…it’s gamier than beef, but that’s probably the closest meat to it, at least prepared the way I had it. It’s got kind of a pungent aftertaste that’s surprisingly tasty, if that makes any sense. Hard to describe…gotta try it!
It’s like a cross between beef and lamb, IMHO. It tends to be tougher than either, but if you’re lucky enough to get your hands on some tenderloin, it’s, well, pretty tender. Other cuts lend themselves well to things like stew or chili. It’s also pretty good if you pound it flat and chicken-fry it.
Lemon juice is good with venison, if you use just a little. (You don’t need a lot of lemon flavor, just a light taste, not like with fish or chicken.) It helps tenderize the meat. If you cube it before cooking it will come out more tender too.
The stuff my dad hunts (from his friend’s ranch/grain farm) is very mild and tastes almost exactly like beef.
I can tell you from experience that deer chilli tastes like beef chilli. Sloppy joes made out of deer meat taste like sloppy joes made with beef. I couldn’t taste the difference between deer and cow with all that other stuff mixed in. Deer steak tastes a lot like cow steak, but is a bit gamier so you are at least aware that it’s something different.
It tastes more like grass-fed beef than corn-fed beef to me, but it’s still different. More different than chicken/turkey. I guess the chicken/duck comparison is the best.
I agree that it doesn’t taste much different from beef in chili or sloppy joes.
If you shot one, and hung it from a tree branch to field dress it.
If you started your cut up by the throat and planned on ending somewhere around the anus.
If you didn’t listen to your Dad when he said don’t cut too deep.
When the contents of the stomach and intestines come rushing out with a vile smell, because you cut too deep.
Don’t worry about the taste of venison, ‘cause you’ll never eat it again.
The best liver I ever ate was venison liver, freshly killed. Soaked it in milk for an hour, then dredged it in seasoned flour, and fried it with bacon and onion. It was the mildest, most succulent liver I have ever had, not gamy at all.
I like to say it tastes like beef, only faster. (Ok, I stole it from Debaser).
Once you’ve tried it, you’ll know I’m right! 
-Butler
hoping for at least one deer this season
It tends to be tougher than beef. I don’t think it tastes that much like beef except fried venison does taste like chicken fried steak.
Deer hunter here.
I’m not too crazy about a plain venison steak; I much prefer a regular cow/beef steak. But IMO venison is great when you cook it in a stew with potatoes, carrots, onions, etc. There’s nothing better!
One of the deer that my husband got last year lived near an apple orchard and the taste was very much like beef (which is what it normally tastes like, IMO), but it was very sweet, too. We had some ribeye steaks that were just incredible - they definitely had an apple-y flavor.
Weird when you think about it, but good eatin’.
Beef, but slightly sweet is my experience too, although I have only tasted venison from one deer (many meals, though!)
I can’t really compare it to anything, but you haven’t lived until you’ve had venison sausage.
Yes, it’s good. But keep in mind that, when you request “venison sausage” from the processor, it is usually “summer sausage,” which means they mix pork fat in with the venison. So do you know if what you had was pure venison sausage, or was it “summer sausage”?