six packs of canned beer used to come wrapped in cardboard: Falstaff six pack There was a church key stuck down into the middle of them. The particular six pack picture I linked to has pull tabs, but this was the best example I could find
I frequently experience defective tabs or ring pulls that come off before accomplishing their intended purpose. The can puncturer/bottle opener remains in our primary kitchen junk drawer, rather than being relegated to the secondary junk drawer.
It also has a crude but usable emergency corkscrew!
Right. But that was not the point of my question to Dinsdale, though, as he asked if grocery stores sold beer, not the store next to it.
Chicago, born in 60.
Born in ‘59, and yeah, they were always just sort of around. Nobody ever actually bought one, as far as I could tell. There were plenty around my home, and my grandparents’ house, many with beer logos stamped on them.
Same here. Separate trip to the liquor store. And grocery stores here in New York still don’t sell liquor. Beer, sure, but no booze.
In those days everything was free. Every box of cereal contained something a kid could collect or play with. Omar Bread publised comics that their van drivers handed out. Trading cards came with things like cigarettes, until they figured kids would pay for the cards and throw the crappy gum in the street. Free maps at gas stations, free shue horns at shoe stores. My sister still eats with the free silverware from Betty Crocker.
When I cleared out my stuff a couple years ago, my church key said Chief Oshkosh on it.
I remember when every carton of beer cans came with a can opener, as mentioned above they never wore out so you didn’t need more but you never got around to throwing them out either so you would end up with heaps of them in the kitchen junk draw
All our wedding flatware is from Betty Crocker. I don’t think they do that program anymore.
I have two of these, one with a magnet. But my fridge has panels on it, so they are both in the drawer.
Growing up we used the pointy end for cans of Hershey’s syrup and sweetened condensed milk.
My grandparents had a wall-mounted Coca-Cola bottle opener mounted in the kitchen. I think they had even got that as a free give away, especially since they never actually drank Coca-Cola.
Bottle caps were easy. Just put the edge of the cap against the square edge of a table, counter, auto-part, and strike down firmly on the cap with your fist.
Churchkeys are not obsolete. Some bottle beers still require it (not all beers are twist-off) and some cans, like tomato juice, need the puncture-type.
Anyone remember the P38? One came with every Army C-Ration (MRE). GI’s would put one on their dogtag chain so they’d never be without. It was as important as your rifle, but not as efficient.
I still keep P-38s and P-51s around in the bug-out kits. I think there’s a FRED in one of them as well.
A quick survey of the kitchen and drawers shows more unitasker bottle openers than anything else. We must have a half-dozen of that type, advertising Salvator or Bitburger or some SF franchise.
Anybody remember these?
I first heard the term while watching “Bye Bye Birdie” on television when I was a kid.
I still wonder what the guy who unlocks the church on Sunday morning uses.
I recall giveaway bottle and can openers in the 1970s. We used them to open large cans of fruit juice. You had to make two holes to get it to pour right. I remember getting a free bottle opener whenever you ordered a pizza.
I have an old Coors one that I probably filched from one of my parents. I’ve had it for decades, still use it to open cans of evaporated milk. Occasionally for other things. Oh, and to remove beer caps, of course. Most of my beer preferences don’t run to twist caps.
RioRico, I wish I’d thought of Claws of Steel. 
My parents and siblings are probably glad I didn’t, though.
Until you posted that picture, the term “church key” seemed, to me, to be a quaint anomaly of American idiom.
You could also buy can openers in any typical grocery store, and that’s what you would have to do – if you accidentally threw out the one you used in the kitchen, and if you didn’t go to the beach or to picnics, didn’t hang out at bottle shops or trade shows, and didn’t buy tourist souvenirs,
I have one of those in 12k gold. It was a gift from my grandmother to my grandfather. It is engraved So you thought you had everything with both of their names on it.
When I was in college (Madison, Wisconsin, 1980s), there was, in fact, a bar just off campus called “The Church Key.” It was built in a former church, and it even had a balcony (the former choir loft). 
I’ve not seen a can needing puncturing for quite awhile but I’ve not bought Hollywood Ranch Market V8 lately.
I whip out my keychain, actually up to four carabiners clipped together (but usually not all at once): one with home keys, one for the RV, one for the car, and one for a whistle, mini-flashlight, mini-Swiss Army Knife (for the toothpick and tweezers), Army dogtag - and a P38. Don’t leave home without it. (The corkscrew and tinwhistle are in my day bag.)
In the back of my office desk I found five churchkeys I’d forgotten all about. Or maybe they’re breeding. There’s an old legend: wire coathangars, which always go missing, are the larval form of metal churchkeys, which appear from nowhere. Logical.
I thought that is what OP was talking about. I wouldn’t call the opener with a puncture tool at one end a a bottle opener at the other a “church key”. It doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to an actual church key.
While we are on the subject of opening beers, why do most American craft beers require an opener? Too expensive to use twist offs?
Now that I work in the food processing industry and have had classes on food safety it almost makes me ill thinking of the pointed end can opener that we used to open cans and how nasty/gunky it would get and never bothered cleaning it. Went and looked at mine in the kitchen utensil drawer…I am running it through the dishwasher the next load, yuck!