Brewing Love – K-drama Episode 5 Recap & Review

Episode 5

Episode 5 of Brewing Love picks back up from the scene with Min-ju, Yong-ju, and Beom. Min-ju picks up on Beom’s feelings and gets more flustered when he realises Beom isn’t aware of these feelings.

The next day, Yong-ju reads up on empaths on their way to the brewery. She and Beom join Min-ju and the ladies for lunch. Min-ju gets flustered by Beom’s feelings again and later approaches him, trying to make him realise his feelings for Yong-ju. Beom laughs the idea off.

The team then has its first product development meeting. They decide to do a two-day workshop to taste other beers. During the meeting, Yong-ju asks Ra-oh to book their accommodation for the workshop and he complains that it’s unfair to put it on him simply because he’s the youngest.

This continues to bother Yong-ju later and Min-ju realises it. Min-ju says he knows she’s hiding her anger for his sake and tells her not to. She tells him to focus on their business. But when Beom easily makes Yong-ju laugh, he gets disappointed. Sook-ja and Young-ja easily pick up on Min-ju’s disappointment and orchestrate a plan through the shopkeeper and village chief to bring Yong-ju back to the village pub.

Meanwhile, Chan-hwi sees Ah-reum working as a cashier at a store. He soon finds that she actually owns the store and is covering for an employee. Back at the pub, Yong-ju describes the hardships she faced while growing up. She and Min-ju chat for a while and seeing his own reflection, Min-ju realises he’s happy.

The next day, Min-ju keeps convincing himself that he’s feeling Beom’s emotions, not his own. He meets the rest of the team at the beach where Yong-ju tries to get her team to focus. They’re distracted by a woman drowning in the sea and Yong-ju and Chan-hwi jump into action, saving her. Turns out both of them were in the special forces together.

The team continues on their agenda and visits different breweries. At one point, Chan-hwi describes the process of falling for someone and Min-ju finds it uncannily similar. In the evening, they find themselves in Yong-ju’s old area.

Yong-ju realises that the rival company has been cheating by clearing Likey beers off the shelves and tanking Likey’s popularity. Yong-ju forces the rival team manager to take responsibility and then visits her old colleagues, giving them some encouragement. Min-ju is quite in awe of her.

Afterwards, Min-ju puts a bandaid over the cuts on Yong-ju’s hands which she got from a beer bottle. As their fingers touch, Min-ju finally realises his feelings for Yong-ju are his own. He steps back in shock but she catches him and pulls him close at the end of Brewing Love Episode 5.

The Episode Review

Brewing Love Episode 5 is all about Min-ju realising his feelings for Yong-ju. While Lee Jong-won and Kim Se-jeong portray their characters with a lot of heart, the episode itself goes on a bit of a haphazard journey. The initial scuffle with Ra-oh is a bit vague and despite the flashback, we don’t really find out why it bothers Yong-ju so much. Yong-ju also doesn’t question it when the two ladies bring her back to the pub on account of Yong-ju not saying goodbye to them.

The drowning incident and the rival company issue that follows this up are equally random, even if they do serve the purpose of having Min-ju realise his feelings. It seems you have to get used to a roller coaster of random incidents and not question it in order to fully enjoy this K-drama. With the light, airy tone of the show and Se-jeong’s infectious positive energy as well as Jong-won’s soft boy gaze, it shouldn’t be too hard.