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The Brew Believer Leading UMD’s Fermentation Lab

Lecturer Teaches the Art and Science of Thousands-Years-Old Craft

November 25, 2025

Tom Flores pours a powdered substance out of a brown paper bag into a large metal fermentation tank.

Tom Flores '92 started out as a young home brewer. Now after decades in the business, he's showing University of Maryland students that the craft isn't all about beer. Now a lecturer in the Department of Nutrition and Food Science and the Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture, he works in UMD's Fermentation Science Laboratory, sharing the fundamentals of a field that spans cheese to kimchi to kefir. 
 

Watch the Peer Review Profiles Video on Flores' Story