Brewing Love – K-drama Episode 9 Recap & Review

Episode 9

Episode 9 of Brewing Love begins with Yong-ju crying for her grandmother while Min-ju comforts her. Meanwhile, Chan-hwi drops Ah-reum home where she laments how the lights in her house are always dark.

When she says she’s imagining a future with him, Chan-hwi says he isn’t sure of his own future. Ah-reum’s mother comes home and finds Chan-hwi waiting outside with his toast truck. She makes a comment about how nobody in this neighbourhood eats this kind of food.

Yong-ju has a hard time over the next few days. Min-ju comes over and gets Yong-ju out of the house. The Baegok-ri villagers have organised games in order to get her to smile and she wins them all. Later, they encourage her to cry some more. When Min-ju asks her if she wants a hug, Yong-ju is scandalised and runs away.

Back at Jisang, Chan-hwi arrives to give Ah-reum a surprise toastie. Ah-reum gets an angry telling off from the Planning Team Head. He is angry at her for not helping bring the new product down. She and Chan-hwi walk home hand in hand and end up getting caught by her mother, who recognises Chan-hwi as the toast guy. 

She and her mother have a fight where Ah-reum reveals how unloved she felt as a child. Ah-reum runs back out to be with Chan-hwi and cries as he comforts her. But ultimately she says he’s too good for this family and tells him to run away.

At the brewery, the man who was stuck in the mountain turns up to show his thanks to the village chief. When he’s alone with Jjuan, the man begins to take a video recording of her. Meanwhile, Min-ju makes arrangements for Yong-ju to sleep in the small rest house at the brewery.

In the morning, a scandal breaks out online about how Jjuan married a rich man and ran away with his money. Min-ju catches the man (a YouTuber) convincing Jjuan and her husband, Soon-gwan to record another video and puts a stop to it.

A flashback to three years ago shows how Jjuan was abandoned by her husband because she is infertile. He was about to hit her when Soon-gwan intervened. He gave her a life in the village and Min-ju soon realised they both had feelings for each other. They got married soon after.

At present, Soon-gwan gives the YouTuber a piece of his mind and declares that every day is special with her. Yong-ju and Min-ju then go for a walk. Yong-ju finally tells Min-ju that she loves him and finds her feelings reciprocated.

The team gets back to work on their product development and Yong-ju returns with renewed vigour. She then takes Min-ju out on a date to play paintball. However, she ruins it by killing everyone within seconds. Afterwards, Min-ju insists on going to her place.

After another meeting with the team, Yong-ju goes to work and gets their new beer approved from the Marketing Team Head. Min-ju stays behind at Yong-ju’s house and redecorates her room. He puts up photographs, brings out her music books and sets music records in her room. While having dinner, Min-ju gifts her a pretty set of mugs and tells her to enjoy the little things. He says they should find ten things that Yong-ju likes.

The team now has the final samples for their three beers. They set about figuring out a name and decide on “Together” for the set of three beers. They go to Jisang to present the beers to the company higher-ups. The evaluation seems to go well but the survey results leave Yong-ju and her team shocked at the end of Brewing Love Episode 9.

The Episode Review

Brewing Love Episode 9 dives into Yong-ju’s grief but also pulls her out of it fairly quickly. The healing process is portrayed quite well, particularly with the villagers making all these efforts to get Yong-ju to smile and not feel alone. Min-ju’s efforts are very wholesome as well and it is nice to see the dynamic between him and Yong-ju become more playful and casual as they get more familiar with each other.  

However, this episode also exemplifies the K-drama’s pacing issues. Considering they just had their first date in the previous episode, Yong-ju’s confession to Min-ju feels rushed. As does Ah-reum’s proclamation that she is already thinking of marrying Chan-hwi and being with him in the long run.

Additionally, some of the editing makes the back-and-forth of timelines vague and unclear — particularly around the section where Min-ju decorates Yong-ju’s room. The drama continues to have a lot of heart but is missing out on a few technical aspects.