diff --git a/playbooks/zuul-stream/functional.yaml b/playbooks/zuul-stream/functional.yaml
index 6b67b05..779a102 100644
--- a/playbooks/zuul-stream/functional.yaml
+++ b/playbooks/zuul-stream/functional.yaml
@@ -58,3 +58,8 @@
       shell: |
         egrep "^.+\| node1 \| OSError.+\/failure-itemloop\/" job-output.txt
         egrep "^.+\| node2 \| OSError.+\/failure-itemloop\/" job-output.txt
+
+    - name: Validate output - binary data
+      shell: |
+        egrep "^.*\| node1 \| \\\\x80abc" job-output.txt
+        egrep "^.*\| node2 \| \\\\x80abc" job-output.txt