Testudo on Tap
UMD Joins With Baltimore Brewery Co-founded by Alum to Offer New Beer
By Chris Carroll
Photos by Stephanie S. Cordle
As a student, Adam Benesch ’98 shared his latest home brews with buddies on game days. Now, thanks to a new partnership between the University of Maryland and Union Craft Brewing, its co-founder and CEO is pouring frosty beers for the Terp community at large.
Testudo Premium Lager, which Benesch (below) describes as “a super drinkable, incredibly approachable, very flavorful” classic lager, is available at UMD athletic venues including SECU Stadium and the Xfinity Center, as well as retail locations throughout the DMV.
The partnership with the Baltimore brewery is also intended to provide internships and new learning opportunities for students studying in the fermentation science, marketing and other majors, while the Maryland mascot-themed beer will eventually offer a fertile testbed for incorporating hops and barley from the state’s farms into a popular product. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the One Maryland Collective, an endeavor composed of fans, alums, businesses and charities that helps UMD student-athletes capitalize on their name, image and likeness (NIL).
“Partnering with Union Craft Brewing is a perfect union,” says Brian Ullmann, executive associate athletic director/chief strategy officer. “We are thrilled to offer Testudo Premium Lager to all of Terp Nation, at our events and across the DMV.”
For Benesch, whose father and siblings also attended the university, seeing UMD fans sipping beer he labored over at a game is bound to be an immense moment of pride.
“I remember at Camden Yards first walking into a baseball game and seeing people drinking one of our beers—I can’t wait for that moment at a Terps football game,” he says.
Benesch co-founded the brewery in Baltimore’s Hampden area in 2012 after the accounting major realized that instead of keeping track of others’ books, he’d rather apply his business skills to a new career. When Maryland law changed to allow beer sales in brewery taprooms, the company’s popularity surged, prompting a 2017 move about a half-mile north into a much larger brewing facility.
While still retaining a neighborhood feel at the brewery, Union’s distribution has expanded beyond Baltimore and now includes Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia and Delaware; the brewery expects to produce nearly 12,000 barrels of its various beers this year.
“We really think of ourselves as a mid-Atlantic brewery now,” Benesch says. “We’re less interested in shipping beers beyond our core region. We think there’s a lot of room for growth here, and we’re more focused on being who we are, being authentic as Marylanders.”
The partnership could be a boon for fermentation science students interested in the beverage-production side of the new major that also encompasses foods and biofuels, says environmental science and technology Professor Frank Coale, who led its development.
“The fact that Union Craft Brewing now has this relationship with the university opens up a great opportunity for them to host interns at their facility,
and for the interns it’s a chance to see the whole operation from raw materials to final product,” he says.
Benesch says the UMD-Union partnership hits what it aimed for: a product that draws on UMD pride while embodying the brewery’s quality goals.
“It’s instantly recognizable as a University of Maryland product, and also something that fans of Union Craft will recognize as our beer,” he says.
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