Brewing Love – K-drama Episode 3 Recap & Review

Episode 3

Episode 3 of Brewing Love begins with Min-ju finding Yong-ju working in the field. Since she’s quite good at the job, the older women convince Min-ju to let her work as a part-timer. Back in Seoul, Chan-hwi sees Ah-reum and gets star-struck.

As she works, Yong-ju learns about Min-ju’s character. At lunchtime, the two ladies take Yong-ju to a small shed which is fully furnished, like a small apartment. Min-ju had it made for them.

Meanwhile, Ah-reum’s bosses tell her to try harder like Yong-ju. During her lunch break, the smell from Chan-hwi’s truck entices Ah-reum. He makes a toasted sandwich for her and she loves it.

Min-ju sees Yong-ju working and joins her, supplying her with coffee and a cream bun. He even ties her hair for her and a quick flashback shows how he noticed her talking about all these things. The two ladies then enter and begin to tease Min-ju and Yong-ju. Min-ju abruptly changes his attitude and tells Yong-ju to leave.

Of course, Yong-ju doesn’t give up. She goes to Uilhan Pub and drinks all ten litres of Naro Beer that are there. The village chief, who also runs the pub, calls Min-ju. A tipsy Yong-ju tells the chief how she’s going to save her colleagues and Min-ju overhears.

The chief then leaves Min-ju to it. Min-ju tells Yong-ju she’ll burn out if she keeps trying so hard to help others. She ends up dozing while he talks. Min-ju then ties her to his back and takes her back to the brewery on his bike.

Meanwhile, the townspeople prepare for the coming beer festival. Jjuan and her husband come back from Vietnam. Yong-ju wakes up totally sober and helps them set things up. The two ladies make plans to push Yong-ju and Min-ju together. The women send Yong-ju into the woods to collect ragwort and then tell Min-ju that she’s lost in the mountain and needs help.

Poor Min-ju searches till nightfall and ends up finding Yong-ju sitting by a disused shed. She says her phone died so she decided to stay the night and go back in the morning. She then demands to know why he hates her. Min-ju says he never hated her.

He then describes the troubles between him and his father which led him to retreat into isolation. A series of flashbacks shows how people took advantage of his kindness. His mother was the only one who understood him but she then passed away.

At present, he says Yong-ju reminds him of the son his father wanted him to be. He also says that six years ago, somebody saved him from an accident. That person told him to block out all the bad stuff and protect himself. Yong-ju muses that not everyone has the ability to protect themselves and grows emotional.

Min-ju tells her to not suppress her emotions so much. When she falls asleep sitting up again, Min-ju makes her lean on his shoulder. In the morning, Yong-ju wakes up and beats herself up for lowering her guard and sleeping soundly at night.

Ah-reum hears from the marriage counsellor who says she’s gotten an A-minus grade due to her parents’ occupations — a real estate agent and a cryptocurrency trader. Ah-reum then requests the village chief to gather all the villagers. She then describes how much money they would make if Jisang were to acquire Naro. She inadvertently makes them believe that Yong-ju wants to steal Min-ju away to work on a new beer and leave them in the dust.

By the time the two come back from the mountain, the villagers have turned against her and end up throwing salt at her. Min-ju takes a stand between her and the villagers at the end of Brewing Love Episode 3.

The Episode Review

Brewing Love Episode 3 is taking this series in the standard K-drama direction. We’ve got all the usual tropes — getting drunk and passing out, the night in the mountains, the past accident when “someone” saved Min-ju. But Lee Jong-won makes Min-ju an endearing soft boy and Kim Se-jeong is delightful as the overenthusiastic Yong-ju (she seems to be channeling a Korean Leslie Knope and it’s great).

Ah-reum taking on more of a competitive role against Yong-ju is a nice twist. It leaves the well-liked Yong-ju with a horde full of people who are upset with her and it will be interesting to see how she gets past this. The dramatics continue and the pace is quite, quite slow but there’s still enough heart in this one.