Beyrle received his bachelor's degree with honors from Grand Valley State University, and a Master of Science degree as a Distinguished Graduate of the National War College. Beyrle completed additional language study in Russian at the University of Michigan and Middlebury College. He spent the spring semester of 1976 on an exchange program at Leningrad State University. From 1977 to 1979, he served as a Russian-speaking guide on several of the cultural exhibitions that traveled across the Soviet Union under a program of exchanges organized by the United States Information Agency.