Originally Posted by wood714

Quick Google search turned up these. They will also leave a wide gash in someones face if used that way.

To protect their aging beers in their monasteries, the monks locked them away in lager cellars, for which only the monks had the keys. It is theorized that the openers reminded someone of these keys — either because of their shape or use — and started calling them “church” keys.


Originally, church keys actually resembled large keys (thus the name) and were used to pry open caps or corks from bottles. Then, when beer cans began being marketed in the 1930s with flat metal covers, the same name, church key, was given to the devices used to open them by piercing them with triangle-shaped holes.