diff --git a/Library/Homebrew/extend/ENV/shared.rb b/Library/Homebrew/extend/ENV/shared.rb
index 7c68ae5e3d06dd2a96e7f0680e7d30db81290f18..c258e9f34f8fe58045dd0c7decfcfcb08046abdc 100644
--- a/Library/Homebrew/extend/ENV/shared.rb
+++ b/Library/Homebrew/extend/ENV/shared.rb
@@ -101,8 +101,8 @@ module SharedEnvExtension
       :llvm
     elsif ARGV.include? '--use-clang'
       :clang
-    elsif self['HOMEBREW_CC']
-      cc = COMPILER_ALIASES.fetch(self['HOMEBREW_CC'], self['HOMEBREW_CC'])
+    elsif homebrew_cc
+      cc = COMPILER_ALIASES.fetch(homebrew_cc, homebrew_cc)
       COMPILER_SYMBOL_MAP.fetch(cc) { MacOS.default_compiler }
     else
       MacOS.default_compiler
@@ -245,4 +245,8 @@ module SharedEnvExtension
   def cxx= val
     self["CXX"] = self["OBJCXX"] = val.to_s
   end
+
+  def homebrew_cc
+    self["HOMEBREW_CC"]
+  end
 end
diff --git a/Library/Homebrew/extend/ENV/super.rb b/Library/Homebrew/extend/ENV/super.rb
index 5b3b8c5c5884cefd3f7b35456cf62fe798fc9991..cb05ec9647ada6836b1ded80eeb2fb78913d45ab 100644
--- a/Library/Homebrew/extend/ENV/super.rb
+++ b/Library/Homebrew/extend/ENV/super.rb
@@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ module Superenv
     # s - apply fix for sed's Unicode support
     # a - apply fix for apr-1-config path
 
-    warn_about_non_apple_gcc($1) if self["HOMEBREW_CC"] =~ GNU_GCC_REGEXP
+    warn_about_non_apple_gcc($1) if homebrew_cc =~ GNU_GCC_REGEXP
   end
 
   private
@@ -125,7 +125,7 @@ module Superenv
 
     # Homebrew's apple-gcc42 will be outside the PATH in superenv,
     # so xcrun may not be able to find it
-    case self["HOMEBREW_CC"]
+    case homebrew_cc
     when "gcc-4.2"
       begin
        apple_gcc42 = Formulary.factory('apple-gcc42')
@@ -272,14 +272,14 @@ module Superenv
   end
 
   def cxx11
-    case self["HOMEBREW_CC"]
+    case homebrew_cc
     when "clang"
       append 'HOMEBREW_CCCFG', "x", ''
       append 'HOMEBREW_CCCFG', "g", ''
     when /gcc-4\.(8|9)/
       append 'HOMEBREW_CCCFG', "x", ''
     else
-      raise "The selected compiler doesn't support C++11: #{self['HOMEBREW_CC']}"
+      raise "The selected compiler doesn't support C++11: #{homebrew_cc}"
     end
   end