Churchkey

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Church key

Churchkey or Church key can refer to various kinds of bottle openers or can openers.

It initially referred to a simple hand-operated device for prying the cap (called a "crown cork") off a glass bottle; this kind of closure was invented in 1898.^[1] The shape and design of some of these openers did resemble a large simple key.^[2] Certain tin cans, notably sardine cans and meat containers, also used an attached "key" to open them. The first of these was patented in Canada in 1900.^[3]

Corned beef and sardine can openers are called keys.

In 1935, beer in cans with flat tops was marketed, and a device to puncture the lids was needed. The same ironic term, "church key", came to be used for this new invention: made from a single piece of pressed metal, with a pointed end used for piercing cans — devised by D.F. Sampson^[4]^[5] for the American Can Company, who depicted operating instructions on the cans themselves,^[6] and typically gave away free "Quick and Easy" openers with their newfangled beer cans.^[7]

There is sparse, and often contradictory, documentation as to the origin of the term "Church Key", though most agree the phrase is a sarcastic euphemism, as the opener was obviously designed to access beer, and not churches.

One explanation for the term "Church Key" lends its origin an almost mythic significance; in Medieval Europe, monks and nobility were the only brewers. Lagering cellars in the monasteries were locked, as the monks guarded the secrets to their craft. The monks carried keys to these lagering cellars on their cinch, or belt. It may have been this key from which the "Church Key" opener got its name.

Another motive for assigning the device such an ironic name could have been the fact beer was first canned (for test marketing) in 1933^[8] — the same year Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Cullen-Harrison Bill.^[9] This act, which predated Repeal of Prohibition, amended the Volstead Act, making 3.2 beer legal. Some experts have posited the term "church key" was a way to "stick it to" the religious organizations who had effected Prohibition in the first place.^[10]

Although the original definition of "Church Key" referred to a simple bottle opener that resembled the non-business end of an old fashioned key, most are now flat with a piercing end and a bottle opener at the other end, with no particular resemblance to a key.

All ordinary consumer beverages in cans are now sold in easy-open pull-top containers, invented in the 1960s. But other cans containing liquid still require piercing, such as canned milk and some juice cans. The term "church key" is the only term in general common use in the U.S. for this simple device;^{[citation needed]} the term "can opener" is reserved for a more complex tool that cuts around the rim of the can — which is not required to simply pour out liquids, and it takes longer to use, and it creates a loose lid with a sharp dangerous edge.

Many bottled beverages now come with caps that can be twisted off by hand, without requiring a tool to pry the cap off.