Drinking beer is not surprisingly a popular pastime, but breweries are now thriving more than ever. Small breweries producing craft beer grew jobs in their sector between 2006 to 2016 by 70 percent.
And while beer prices are actually on the rise, people are buying more craft beer than ever. MillerCoors and other companies like Heineken are seeing a slowdown in sales. But people are paying more for premium craft beers produced by small companies.
You can get this beer at a brewery, but you can also take much of it home with you. And you know what you need to open it up?
A bottle opener. Or, as some people might call it, a church key. You might not associate alcoholic beverages and church with one another, but there’s some history behind the name.
The History of the Church Key
Whether you’re an amateur beer drinker or the kind of person who would use a 22-piece bartender’s kit without breaking a sweat, you sound like you know what you’re talking about when you know your beer and spirits. If you’ve ever been asked for a church key and stared at someone with a blank look, don’t worry. Most of us might be in the same boat.
Yes, you know it as a bottle opener. But colloquially, people would still be correct if they called a bottle opener a church key.
What’s in a Name?
The first time the term church key was ever mentioned in print was in 1951. However, the phrase was actually thought to have been mentioned and used in a widespread way much before that.
Around the 1930s, beer was starting to shift in the way it was sold. While it was previously sold in bottles, manufacturers began to make the shift to cans.
These cans weren’t the cans that we’re used to today. The pull tab wasn’t introduced to cans until around the 1960s, so you couldn’t crack open a fresh can of beer.
Instead, to open the can of beer, a tool was needed. The tool was equipped with a sharp point at the end, attached to a strip of flat metal.
The can was punctured by this tool on both sides to let the beer flow freely from it. The act of opening the beer can was thought of as an analogy to opening a door – like a door to a church.
Later on, some of the bottle openers came to resemble church keys in actual appearance, even though the original tool didn’t particularly bear much resemblance to a church key. Openers became larger, and the mouth of the bottle opener was thought to look like the handle of the key.
The caps on the beer bottles that required a church key to open them were called crown corks, a regal name that also could have been thought to tie into the tradition of the church.
A Church Key by Any Other Name
Beyond the history, it’s also thought that the name of the word was a double-ended joke. Most people don’t think of drinking when they think of religion or church unless they’re thinking of the communion wine.
Yet it’s called a church key somewhat as a joke because drinking beer is not considered by some to be a very church-like experience. Calling your bottle opener a church key was just a way of poking fun at the situation.
Why You Need Your Own
After reading so much about why a church key is called a church key, you should also know something about where to get your own.
It’s always useful to have a bottle opener on hand no matter where you are. You’d be surprised how often the occasion strikes that you need one and you don’t have one. And you don’t want to be stuck making one out of something that’s definitely not supposed to be a bottle opener, and you’re not even sure will work.
Where to Find your Own
If you’re going to be carrying a bottle opener around on your person or on your keychain at all times, you don’t want it to be just any bottle opener. You need a quality bottle opener that shows other people you know what you’re doing. It can also show off your personality at the same time.
You can go for a classic shape that everyone thinks of when they think of a bottle opener (or now, a church key.) This is the standard thumb-like design that you can pop onto your bottle opener. When you choose this opener, you can’t go wrong.
You can also opt for a credit card sized bottle opener. If you don’t have your keys with you for whatever reason, you probably still have your wallet. This shape of bottle opener can be popped right into a credit card slot and whipped out for easy access.
For someone looking for something that matches their style to a tee, you can actually customize your own bottle opener.
You can use an online design lab to create your bottle opener in order to let the customizer know exactly what you want. My Custom Bottle Opener provides you with hundreds of different options with the templates and pictures that are available in the customizer.
Etch in text, include a favorite photo, or make it all about the design and shape. The sky’s the limit when designing your own opener. You’ll want to open everyone’s beers and drinks for them just so you can show off your new bottle opener that’s unique just to you.
Make the Right Choice
My Custom Bottle opener doesn’t use any gimmicks like paper transfers, silk screens, or pad printers. Their openers are designed for the busy bartender just as much as they’re designed for the casual beer enthusiast.
The turnaround is less than a day for a product that will literally last you a lifetime.
For your new church key, bottle opener, beer opening device, or whatever you want to call it, make the best choice you can and get quality openers that will make you seem like a pro bartender.
