99Rogers – Crown Heights – Thursdays @ 8 pm

The Trivia: Four themed rounds of ten questions each. One entirely music round (name the song & artist). The host offers double points on one round of each team’s choice, but you have to choose it before you hear the questions, so it’s a bit of a gamble there. Top-scoring team each round gets shots for the team. If two teams tie for a round, they each have to tell a joke as a tiebreaker; audience decides. The questions were fair, but challenging, with a few headscratchers. Overall, the questions were high quality, and its clear that the host puts a lot of effort into writing a balanced round of trivia. The host shouts the questions through a megaphone and they are… extremely… long. Like entire paragraph questions. Sometimes he throws a few extra hints in there, other times it was just a lot of needless exposition for a relatively simple question. IMHO, trivia night questions should not take much longer than ten seconds to read. If you need to tell a long story to connect it to the theme, then just pick a different question! Even the music questions run for far too long, often giving away the title of the song before the host cuts it off. As a result, the night takes longer, too! I’m an old man, I want to get home before 11! Besides that nitpick, I was very happy with the questions overall, and the host did keep the night moving efficiently and effectively.

$50 bar tab goes to the winner, but there is NO SECOND PLACE. I find this a very bad marketing strategy for the bar, as even a $10 to $25 bar tab pretty much guarantees the team comes back, and you KNOW they’re gonna spend more than that in drinks alone. The highest scoring team each round gets shots.

The Venue: 99Rogers is a dimly lit bar with sports on TV and a surprisingly robust selection of American eats (chicken sandwiches and tacos among them), plenty of beers on draft, and a handful of specialty cocktails (small wine selection, though). They have outdoor seating, but, unfortunately, Trivia must be played indoors. The place gets PACKED, so get there early to secure a booth near the host.

Pig Beach – Gowanus – Thursdays @ 7

The Trivia: Five themed rounds of ten questions each plus a picture round. This trivia night is run by a Connecticut-based trivia company called Best Trivia Ever. My general stance on trivia companies is that the question writing is lazy and uninspired and the host rarely has any connection to the material, and this one isn’t much different. The questions leaned heavily into pop culture, with a lot of them seemingly referencing specific Buzzfeed articles or unverifiable Google “search data”. Questions that essentially amount to “guess the celebrity” just don’t feel satisfying, and many of the questions were so niche and obscure that even after the answer is revealed, the crowd goes “huh? who?”. The picture round is mostly impossible, focusing on D-list reality stars and young, unknown musicians. Pluses: the host was a great clue-reader, offering witty banter/hints/asides that kept it fresh even as he was repeating questions, and he kept the pace going perfectly, with enough time between questions to discuss with the team and enough time between rounds to get a drink, chat for a bit, yet still finish the night by 9:30 (trivia is always on a school night, isn’t it?).

Best Trivia Ever has the following line in their Instagram bio: “Trivia nights used to suck. We fixed that”. Number one, how dar… but then as you swipe through their many event photos, you’ll get a sense for the type of clientele they are trying to attract to trivia nights: Zoomers. And they have a point; trivia has rarely been kind to young folks, no matter the generation. Their personal experiences haven’t been in the public consciousness long enough to be considered “Trivia” with a capital T, and many of the questions are drawing upon decades of history they weren’t alive for. This was true for young people in the 90s, it was true when I started playing trivia as a twentysomething in the 2010’s, and for the most part it is still true today.

It isn’t fair, nor is it really meant to be. There is an inherent advantage for having been alive longer to accumulate the breadth and depth of knowledge required to win a trivia night. BTE’s question writers would like to skip that wait, instead opting to provide tons and tons of questions aimed squarely at Gen Z, which is such an utterly Gen Z thing to do I can’t even… The “Pub Trivia Vanguard” may be perplexed by the nature of some of these questions, as very few of them fit the classic Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit mold. And you know what? That’s OKAY! There are LOTS of different trivia nights in the city on every night of the week with plenty of traditional categories (history, sports history, movie history, etc.), but very few that cater towards folks who don’t binge watch five episodes of Jeopardy in a single sitting. I’m not gonna shake my first at these young folks and tell them to get off my trivia lawn; I encourage bars, hosts, and companies to continue to try to find underserved markets to cater to. It is my belief that EVERY bar can be a trivia bar with the right host and the right questions, and BTE is helping to demonstrate the veracity of that belief.

The winning team gets a $50 gift card to Pig Beach. Second place gets $25. Third place gets a totebag.

The Venue: Pig Beach is a massive barbecue joint in Gowanus (like right on the canal) with a ton of outdoor space and a huge, high-ceilinged indoor area where the trivia happens. There are dozens of TVs with sports and classic barbecue offerings (pulled pork, brisket, collard greens). There are plenty of beers on draft, but not the most robust cocktail list, and they’re expensive to boot.

Minnie’s Bar – Sunset Park/Greenwood – Wednesdays @ 8 – 9/22

The Trivia: Five rounds of eight questions each. Each round was themed. The trivia ranged from extremely easy (Who hosted the “Price is Right”? Seriously?) to extremely esoteric (List all the states that don’t allow recall elections at any level…. seriously?). Not very many questions in the sweet spot, but, as host Craig said (maybe too many times) he was on vacation the week before… so maybe it was just an off night. Not sure if there is an excuse for claiming that the cello is the “highest” member of the violin family, though. I don’t assign points, but… points off for factually incorrect trivia questions. Craig was a capable clue reader and amiable enough; bantered with the crowd, clearly has a handle on social media, at one point I think he was… livestreaming himself? I might have enjoyed it more if he was delivering more consistent trivia questions, but I found him charming nonetheless.

Winning team got $30 off their bar tab. Second place got $10 off.

The Venue: Minnie’s definitely has a dive bar feel, complete with the gruff, hairy bartender who will play a game of chess with you at the bar. Makes sense given the location. It isn’t exactly a hopping spot, but it is one of the furthest South bars in Brooklyn that does trivia. Solid draft selection of mostly (all?) New York breweries and a few varied specialty cocktails (I enjoyed the Cafecito). You can order pizza from Table 87 through the restaurant.

Uncle Barry’s – Park Slope – Wednesdays @ 9

The Trivia: Five rounds of ten questions each. A mix of themed, visual, and general knowledge rounds. The questions appear on screens in the bar (sometimes with images), which is helpful because depending on where you are sitting, the host can be very hard to hear. Questions were all original and written by the host (always a plus!). Some were complete gimmes, some were very challenging, but overall, right in the sweet spot for difficulty, and trivia newbies should not be scared away. There is a five player limit for each team. THIS TRIVIA GOES QUICKLY! Trivia started a little after 9 and ended a little after 10. That’s a lot of questions in an hour. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but if you want to do a social event with trivia in the background, this isn’t really that (though not nearly as intense as Pete’s Candy Store!). Not a lot of time to mingle or discuss the questions, and not a lot of banter from the host, and you have to wait until the VERY END to find out how your team is doing, which can be frustrating. Something else that is frustrating, and I don’t know whose fault this is, but the music is TOO DAMN LOUD. Doesn’t even matter that they barely give you any time between rounds to talk to your friends, because you can’t hear them anyway.

…am I old and out of touch?

No, it’s the children who are wrong.

Winning team gets a $50 gift card. No prizes for 2nd or 3rd place (which we were; I promise that isn’t affecting my review).

The Venue: Beer bar with a long beer list, plus a few ciders/wines/frozen drinks, and a decent amount of seating. Very clean-looking, not a dive bar. You can play from outside, but you’ll have to look at the TV screen through the window, so it’s better to show up early and get a decent spot for your team. The bar doesn’t have food (maybe a bag of chips), but there are plenty of food venues right nearby (including Artichoke Pizza) which I believe they will let you eat in the bar.

Other info: Sisters with Moot Bar, who also runs trivia on Wednesdays at 9.

Benchmark Restaurant – Park Slope – Wednesdays @ 8

The Trivia: Host Adam (@adamdoestrivia) is an independent host who writes his own questions (always a plus!). The trivia was challenging, but fair. Trivia was 5 rounds of 10 questions, each with a theme: categories were Today in History, Common Threads (what do three seemingly random things have in common?), Elton John, a music round associated with fathers and dads (sample answer: Papa Roach), and another one I can’t remember. I had a bone to pick with a couple of the common threads, but overall the questions were well written and interesting.

Winning team gets money off their bar tab.

The Venue: The host stands on a balcony and uses a microphone and speaker. If you aren’t sitting in the right spot, it can be extremely difficult to hear him (this lead to a couple questions being more difficult than they should have been). GET A RESERVATION AND GET THERE EARLY so you can get one of the better tables. Benchmark is a steakhouse, the prices aren’t cheap, but there are lots of food options and a good selection of beers and wines.

Other info: The host is running a tournament and keeps track of the leaderboard week to week with prizes after six weeks.