Hopefully Annie will chime in here with an answer. She raises her own cattle for the table.

If the teenager can be raised to full adult age, then yes. But my experience with a slaughtered, too-young Black Angus steer was that it was uneatable. The taste was terrible. No matter what I did I couldn't hide the off-flavor. I, personally, would pass on the young steer.

I have sure eaten a lot of "underage" beef....it was fine...in many cases better than fine!
Kate....what "off flavor" could it possibly have? Perhaps it wasn't a steer and was a bull that had grown "past puberty"? That's the only thing I could think of that would make it different.
Simmenthal is wonderful eating beef. An animal that young, likely grass fed, won't have much marbeling and will be quite lean and not have a strong beef flavor....but add some garlic and it's good ;-)
certainly don't pass it up if it's free!! I have had more than my share of Holstein heifers that were running with the herd of heifers, god injured and had to be butchered.......and made it's way into my freezer. One time we had the whole thing but the filet ground, and even that filet was a little bit tough! But we ate hamburgers, meat loaf, chili, spaghetti and meatballs all winter and into the summer!
Comparing to veal, it would be a bit less tender and certainly more beefy, bompared to a fed out steer, it will be less "beefy". A lot depends on how it's raised, penned or pastured, what it's fed and how long it's hung.

Our friends the crazy (wool) sheep ranchers did that by neglecting to slaughter their extra bull calves as veal, or decide they were beef and turn them into steers, but eventually realizing they had to go, and that pet bulls wasn't a good idea. The meat was fine but nothing to write home about. If you're looking for the very best meat for guests, I'd suggest that you get what you pay for. If you have reason to think these are particularly good, and being given away for similar reasons, it might be worth it, but you also have to find recipes (or other homes) for all the different cuts. If you don't have a lot of guests, and can afford to buy good meat from a quality butcher, it might be better to go that route.

That is essentially "baby beef". If the animal was still on milk, or unweaned, it would be veal, but I'm assuming this is an animal that was taken from its mother and fed commercially available feed or grass/pasture, or a mixture of those two.

The meat will be fine. There will be little fat or marbling, probably, especially if it has been pastured, there will be more fat if it's been fed grain. All in all, it probably won't be prime beef, but it'll be fine. If it's free, it's more than worth the price of processing.

As for bulls/steers, I find little difference in young bulls and steers when it comes to flavor. Older bulls are still OK if they haven't been exposed to cows. My beef has been bulls 18 months old or slightly younger for the past 5 years. The big difference is in composition of the carcass, steers are broader across the "porterhouse" while bulls have thick necks, which do not, of course, produce the best or most tender cuts.

I did attempt castration by "banding" for a couple of years. I was 100% unsuccessful, either missing one testicle or both. I scared the calves, annoyed their mothers and got myself kicked, stepped on, generally messed up. Finally I realized that I'd been eating bulls for a couple of years and couldn't really tell the difference, so I just gave up and left the little boys intact.

Now, if I were selling beef by the pound to make a profit, I'd be castrating the bulls to make them steers, as the expensive cuts are bigger in steers, as is the fat content.

A six month old steer isn't going to be a huge animal, probably 600-800 pounds, although Simmetal is a pretty hefty breed. Hanging weight is 60% of live weight, approximately, so even assuming the heavier estimate, it's 480 pounds hanging. Processed weight is approximately 60-70% of the hanging weight, so 336 pounds. It would be more if you took cuts like shanks and soup bones, less if it's boneless stew meat or ground to burger.

I say go for it. It won't be prime beef, but it'll still be pretty good. There should be no "off" flavor, it's not old enough, although it might not be as flavorful as more mature beef. And, as LindaC says, you can use a flavorful seasoning. Good beef stands on its own, but there is always that blue/blue cheese/butter/red wine/etc. sauce...

Annie