diff --git a/tests/hazmat/primitives/utils.py b/tests/hazmat/primitives/utils.py
index 9ae8d21..f562956 100644
--- a/tests/hazmat/primitives/utils.py
+++ b/tests/hazmat/primitives/utils.py
@@ -73,7 +73,8 @@
     md = params[1]
     m = hashes.Hash(hash_cls, backend=backend)
     m.update(binascii.unhexlify(msg))
-    assert m.finalize() == binascii.unhexlify(md.replace(" ", "").lower())
+    expected_md = md.replace(" ", "").lower().encode("ascii")
+    assert m.finalize() == binascii.unhexlify(expected_md)
 
 
 def generate_base_hash_test(algorithm, digest_size, block_size,
@@ -125,7 +126,7 @@
         pytest.skip(skip_message)
     m = hashes.Hash(algorithm, backend=backend)
     m.update(b"a" * 1000000)
-    assert m.finalize() == binascii.unhexlify(md.lower().encode('ascii'))
+    assert m.finalize() == binascii.unhexlify(md.lower().encode("ascii"))
 
 
 def generate_hmac_test(param_loader, path, file_names, digestmod,