History of brewery

In 1756, our founder Miyasaka Izaburo received a license and began brewing sake.There were two other sake breweries in Kamisuwa at that time.Our forefathers also did many other things besides sake brewing, such as releasing shrimp into Lake Suwa, compiling a book about the heritage of Suwa, and taking the role of a Shinto priest.A former Toji (master brewer) Kitahara Taichi built the foundation of our current brewery. He won Honkin's first Gold Award at a national sake competition.In the competition, most of the awarded sake were made of Yamada-Nishiki. So, it was meaningful that our sake, which made of Miyama-Nishiki from Nagano, won the award.Now "Taichi", a sake named after him, has become synonymous with Honkin as our flagship.Honkin is named 本 ("hon" means genuine) and 金 ("kin" means gold) in Japanese. We sustain our efforts toward our concept "To brew genuine golden (No.1) sake".