The Milltown Bar & Grill

Where: The Milltown Bar & Grill - 9191 Bentley Street

When: 8:30, Thursdays

Web Presence: Clues and hints for the upcoming week can be found on their facebook page.

Team Info: Up to six people. Got more? Split into two teams!

Prizes: There's a 40 dollar gift certificate (redeemable future weeks only, alas), with a random prize for second-to-last place as well. Copious amounts of shots to be won in-between the rounds on bonus questions as well.

Format: Four rounds, twelve questions. Questions can be worth any number of points. There's also arbitrary enthusiasm points to be won as well.

Food and Drink: Good burgers, and tasty pizza to be had. The menu is pretty extensive, so chances are good you'll find something to eat. It's burger night on Thursdays, which means carnivores get a pretty sweet deal on a burger and a beer. Pretty straightforward beer selection, but $5.25 Pale Ales and $6 boozy Arnold Palmers are a good game day specials.

The Milltown Bar and Grill is one of the few quizzes in Vancouver that is located on an island. I'm trying to rack my brains to think if there is one on Granville Island, but I'm not sure there is - so I guess that we can safely say that this is the only trivia night you'll find on an island. It is also the only quiz in Vancouver that is in Richmond.

Wait, what? The Milltown is on Richmond Island, a tiny island just North of Vancouver International Airport, and only accessible through Marpole. De jure Richmond, de facto Vancouver. It has great views of the flightpath, and if you happen to have a boat, you'll have few problems docking at the nearby marina. I assume. I don't have a boat. For such a far-flung locale, the bar is cozy, warm, and quite full. Most of the tables were playing trivia, so it is safe to say the community here is doing quite well. The food is good, and the staff are super friendly.

But, how's the quiz? I imagine that is why you are here. In a Vancouver where quiz companies are extending their reach across multiple bars, it is refreshing to find a new quiz that has a personal touch, and isn't another franchise of a larger concern. It's four rounds of homespun questions, with plenty of sports, and plenty of multiple point questions. There's a fair share of true or false, and the tried and true maxim of "pick whichever answer seems less likely" held up pretty well here. Is 90 mile beach actually 90 miles? Of course not! There was a fair number of difficult questions (the Welsh name of the official residence of the Prime Minister?), but mixed in a few softballs that could be answered by looking at one of the many televisions (Who was playing in the Thursday Night Football game).

In a rarity for quizzes about town, there was no music round. However, if you're an extroverted type, there were ample opportunities to get bonus points by going up and singing a song during our theme round on Pop Princesses. Whether or not you got any points, and how many you got, appeared fairly arbitrary, but that's how it goes sometimes. The theme round, I might add, is nominated and voted on by quizzers the previous week, which I think is a pretty cool idea. The "vote via hooting and hollering" is something I find a bit tiresome, especially as the night stretches on, but the crowd digs it here. There was also a "Win Two Shots" minigame at the end of each round - the quizmaster would load up imdb and read out movies until one of the gathered people submitted the actor that had a role in all of them. Ties are broken in a fun manner - one representative from each team goes up, and goes had to head trying to name more of something (the five largest buildings in Vancouver, the elements that start with the letter 'A'), which I think is a great tiebreak.

It was a fun night, though a late 8:30 start can make getting back a little tricky if you don't live in South Granville, or drive. There is a shuttle service available for patrons who have four or more drinks, but we didn't quite reach the cutoff there. Fortunately, airport proximity mean cabs are easy to come by. It's certainly a quiz I will come back to, but likely in the summer, when the walk down the causeway to the bar is warmer, and I can watch some planes landing.

Coming in for landing: A bit tricky to get to, but a fun quiz in a cozy atmosphere.

The Cheeky Pub Quiz @ The London

Where: The London, 700 Main Street (at Georgia)

When: 7PM, Wednesdays

Web Presence: Here's the event page. I know it says Sundays but trust me, they're actually running it on Wednesdays now. Double check with them on twitter, if you don't want to take our word for it.

Team Info: Take as many as you want, I suppose.

Prizes: First place took home a $25 Jennings Hospitality Gift Certificate. Not bad. Last week they were giving away Whitecaps tickets, which could be a good haul.

Format: About 5 rounds of varying sizes. There was a picture round, and a brief and merciless music round.

Food and Drink: Given the general demeanour of the pub ("Donnelly chic," complete with pinball
machines, TVs locked to Sunday Night Football, etc), I wasn't expecting much in the way of food. Well, for the first of many times that night, I was mistaken, as the Chili Verde was frankly delicious, and some of the best best pub food I've had in town. The vegetarians reported good things about the quesadillas, so it was a pleasant surprise on most counts. The London Lager's selling point remains its price point and not its taste, however. Can't win 'em all.

The London Pub's quiz deserved better than the crowd it got. Not that they were surly or obnoxious, or inattentive, but rather that they barely existed. The place was a ghost town this particular Sunday evening, due to a combination of a beautiful September weather and the Seahawks losing. Not many people had stuck around, and more than a few people didn't feel like heading out to the bar at the end of a weekend. A quick talk with the host told me that they'd be moving quizzes to Wednesday, where they are now, and by most accounts it looks like things are going much better.

The author approves.

The quiz was run by an amiable Brit who kept up a steady stream of banter across four or five rounds. I wish I could be more specific, but went nearly a month ago and have been slacking off in writing this post. The questions were a quality mix of pub quiz classics, planted firmly in the middle ground between fun and challenging. The emphasis on pop culture and other such trash was lower than I'm used to at trivia nights around town. It felt a part of the long standing tradition of British pub quizzes where they expect you to know your shit. You should find that you'll have an inclusive time without feeling either patronized or dumb. That's a hard balance to strike at a quiz.

The picture round was broadcast on monitors, and went along at a brisk pace. The music round was one of the hardest I've ever been to, to boot. I'm not sure if we were just having a bad day, but we felt entirely out of phase with the host's tastes. I'm willing to bet you'll have better luck though. The other teams seemed to.


The Call Of The Wild:  A good quiz, that is hopefully finding more love on Wednesday nights. Head on down, meet some people, have a good time, and enjoy the Chili Verde. And remember, it's on Wednesday nights now.

The Coppertank

Where: The Coppertank, located at 3135 W Broadway in Kits

When: 7:45, on a roughly biweekly schedule

Web Presence:  The official Trivia page provides the upcoming schedule. It is usually every two weeks but not always, so check ahead of time. You can sometimes find a hint on the Coppertank's Facebook page.

Team Info: Max team size of 8, and there are usually a fair number of teams with that many.

Prizes: We finished third and got $25 knocked off our bill. I think second gets the same, and first twice that.

Format: Three rounds, 12 questions each, and a picture round. Each round ends with a sound clip worth two points.

Food and Drink: I didn't eat here, but the food selection looked pretty good. About what one would expect in Kits. The beer was the happy middle ground between Megabreweries galore and a full-on craft beer explosion. Gigantic mugs of Grasshopper were on special, around eight dollars for 24 ounces of beer.

Billing itself as "the best pub quiz in Kits," the Coppertank Grill's cavernous confines play host to a derby of knowledge every other Wednesday night. More or less. I haven't exactly pinned down their schedule, but "every two weeks, usually" seems to be an apt descriptor. The official start time is 7:45, making it the only quiz in town that doesn't start on the hour or half hour. Will this bold time slot gamble pay off? Let' see what I think!

The quiz itself went briskly, which I think is a boon. It was marked by the host and his assistant, and score updates would often come in the middle of the second round. If you've got the personnel to pull this off, I think it is a great idea. Too often I've been bored stiff at a quiz while the markers wait until everything has been marked and checked and ranked. While unorthodox, I didn't mind the announcing of the rankings midway through the next round.

Pienaar, 1995 Coppertank quiz champion

The picture round was the best I've played in a while. While not particularly varied — naming sports stars and their numbers — it had an excellent range of easy (Wayne Gretzky), middling (Kareen Abdul-Jabbar), difficult (Christine Sinclair), and fiendish (Francois Pienaar) questions. While I expect few Vancouver quizzers know of Pienaar, surely some may have at least thought that he was probably the guy Matt Damon played in Invictus, so hopefully no one felt too hard done by. I can only assume that it took a team with an Afrikaaner in their ranks to scry the correct number. His number was six, and he wasn't even the most famous person to wear a number six Pienaar jersey - that honour surely goes to Nelson Mandela.



The rest of the questions were good, but not quite on the level of the picture round. Not too much to write about, but it tended more towards "trivial" things that could go either way than towards fact-based recall. I like and don't like those kinds of questions. I like them because hey, it is trivia, and I don't like them because they usually put our teams into ten-minute long agony spirals because it is borderline impossible to actually know the answer. I'll stop here, before I go too Pub Quiz Policy Wonk for my own blog, but suffice it to say The Coppertank handled these types of pesky questions with aplomb.

15-12 over New Zealand: A good quiz on the crowded Wednesday evening docket. Is it the best quiz in Kits, as they claim? I personally don't think so, but I wouldn't hesitate in putting it second. Good questions, good pacing, and good drinks make this a great evening. Next time, I'll make sure to bring a larger team. The odd time slot? It's probably just a way of saying "It starts at 8, but get here early"

That's right, THE Tank

Keep Calm And Trivia On at The Locker Room Pub

Well, shit. It looks like this was a short-lived quiz night, and only lasted a few weeks. Hopefully, someone else will carry the torch of sports-oriented quizzing in Vancouver.

Where: The Locker Room, 395 Kingsway (at 12th)

"Where good friends meet"

When: 7pm, Thursdays

Web Presence: As this is another IQ 2000 Trivia quiz, you can find hints, photos, and daily questions on their facebook page.

Team Info: Get some friends and show up! I think the max team size is 7 or 8.

Format: Four rounds of 10 questions each, marking after the second round. As per standard operating procedure, a great slideshow to accompany the questions and answers. Price-is-right style tiebreakers.

Prizes: Myriad. I've seen everything from novelty drinking gloves to PBR hoodies given away for the top prize. Pitchers tend to find their ways to enthusiastic teams. The prizes are continually shifting, so you'll have to show up to find out what is being handed out on any given night.

Food and drink: The food is the kind of food you would expect to find in a sports bar. The beer selection is your standard quiver of megabreweries, with a few craft beers to satisfy the choosy drinker. Once again, Parallel 49 continues to impress me with the establishments I can find them in.


Quizzes pop up in the most unlikely places sometimes. I would not have expected The Locker Room, née Maverick's, to have entered the Vancouver trivia night battleground, but here we are. As far as I can recall, this is the first sports bar in town to host a quiz. Since you are asking me, I'm going to go ahead and say that is interesting. Why? Well, read on. 

Keep Calm and Trivia On is the latest hosting venture for IQ2000 Trivia, who styles himself as the Justin Timberlake of Vancouver pub quiz. I would agree that he is certainly well-dressed, and definitely the most famous member of the boyband that was the UBC trivia club. Once again the questions are well written, the hosting is savvy, and the pace brisk. Given the clientele and target demographic, the questions are shifted a bit away from tech culture compared to other IQ2000 quizzes, which seems like a good decision.

So, with the technology questions largely excised, what will fill in those holes? Current events, history, some Canadiana, and... hmmmmm? Are there hockey games on all the TVs? Is that Kevin Durant I see dunking over there? Are the Indiana Pacers melting down RIGHT NOW? Of course! We're at a sports bar, people, and the operative word here is sports. The quiz comes with a dedicated sports round, which is easily the best ten noodle-scratchers (to borrow a phrase from guest-poster Rob) about the sporting world in town. Mostly hockey-related, but unafraid to foray into baseball, basketball, or either football, the round is a joy for a sports fan like myself. I've never been able to give a rational explanation as to why I want to stand up and yell SPOOOOORRRRTTTTTSSSSSS half of the time, but I've always enjoyed sports quite a bit, and this quiz scratches that itch quite thoroughly.

That said, the quiz is still in its infancy. The uptake is fairly low at the moment - it isn't yet experiencing the frenzied full houses that some other trivia nights are. The main draw of the bar is its impeccable sports programming, but when there isn't a game on, the ambient crowd is a bit low. It's too bad, but I remain hopeful for the future. Don't let this put you off, though. If there is a particularly gripping hockey game going on - Montreal in overtime, Stanley Cup Finals, etc), the quiz will usually accommodate the hockey watchers. For the health of the quizmaster, that's probably the right call.

Greg Adams! Greg Adams!: A well-run quiz that is a bit sparse on attendance at the moment. Hands-down the best sports questions in the city, and good prizes.

There Is No Easy Mode @ EXP Restaurant + Bar

Where: EXP Restaurant + Bar, 309 W Pender Street

When: 7pm, one Wednesday a Month. I'm not entirely certain which Wednesday, but it usually appears to be the third or fourth. It usually is a full house, so getting here before 7 is a wise choice. 

Web Presence: West Coast Geeks Vs Nerds, the shadowy Wizard-figures behind this quiz, create Facebook events for each week's quiz

Team Info: 5 per team.

Format: There are two 20 question rounds - "Normal Mode" and "Hard Mode". You thought it was just a cute name? Each round is scored separately, with attendant prizes. The scoring operates on a unique combo system - a correct answer is worth 100 points. If you answer the next question correct, that is worth 200 points. The next question, if answered correctly, would then be worth 300 points for your team. It maxes out there, with 4th, 5th and so on being worth 300 points¹. There are bonus questions worth 50 points attached to some questions, and a Bonus Round at the end of each mode, which can be worth up to 600 points.

Prizes: They are legion, and awarded to the top 3 teams in each mode. They range from swag, to videogames, to XP (loyalty points at the restaurant). I'd tell you more, but I've never won one here.

Food and drink: Most of EXP's notoriety comes from the fact it is themed around videogames, not from its food. It is fairly average bar food, but with delightful themed names. The beers are standard downtown beer prices, with specials on such rare and exotic libations such as "Corona." While $3.75 is not a bad price for a bottle, it wasn't quite enough to entice me, and I stuck with a 6 dollar IPA. There is also an extensive mixed drink list, mostly neon concoctions with cute names

Two common gripes I have with pub quizzes in general are that the questions aren't difficult enough² and they rarely ask questions about video games. Aggravatingly enough, There Is No Easy Mode at EXP Restaurant + Bar solved both these problems at the same time. Hosted by an affable gentleman whose name I did not catch, There Is No Easy Mode is a slick presentation, making good use of the impressive multimedia system at EXP, all the while being the harbinger of doom as far as my video game knowledge ego is concerned.

The questions are great - very few gimmes, and almost no "soft" questions. Rounds are themed ("Zero to Hero", for example), and the questions pull from nearly the entire spectrum of electronic gaming - from Apple II and Jaguar to mobile games and the XBox One, they're all here. Also, they don't fool around. Normal Mode is some questions that a casual gamer may know a few, but Hard Mode is as advertised. You don't know the name of the Frog from Super Mario RPG? Or the theme song to Altered Beast? Well, you may not be extending your combos for very long. The competition is sharp. If you finish in the top 3, you deserve it, as there are some Omega-level teams out there - which I suppose you can expect from a quiz with such a relatively narrow scope.

Any complaints? They don't tend to ask much about sports games, which are totally also games too, right? And maybe they could add a third round, just because we're all having so much fun with the first two. But in general, I think they handle their content with skill and a keen knowledge of their audience. If you like video games, you should come out and enjoy the show, and try and win some swag. If you're reading this, wizened overlords who run WCGvN, keep up the good work. this night's a gem. But ask more questions about MVP Baseball 05, which is a masterpiece.

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A: If you love video games, you should come to one of these. And then you should realise you like pub quizzes and use your brains at other ones. If you like pub quiz but not video games, then I think this could be a rough night for you.

Beware

---

1 Although I will respectfully point out that most fighting games actually DECREASE the damage you do as the combo goes on, but I'm sure they know that, based on my performances at this quiz.
2 OK, let's see if I can avoid opening a can of worms that will make me sound narcissistic: I'm not saying I know all the answers or even most of them, but I would absolutely love it if more places asked tough questions, instead of (pardon the impending french) stupid shit like what a group of kittens (adorable) or narwhals (pointy) or crows (annoying) is called, or what X-phobia is or whether or not some completely absurd thing is true or false (if it sounds implausible, it is probably true). Surely there is a market for a quiz that will bust us down a notch, right? Okay, I'm done.

The Cove, Redux

Where: The Cove, 3681 West 4th

When: 8pm every Monday

Web Presence:  The facebook group has quiz info and flat out gives away three answers each week, which you'll want to take note of because the corresponding questions are unbelievably difficult.

Registration Fee: Nobody really does these anymore, so from here on assume a quiz is free unless we tell you otherwise

Team Info: No de jure team limit, but the compactness of the venue and corresponding smallness of the furniture will make it tough to get more than six around a single table

Format: Three rounds of 15 questions each

Prizes: Free shots given out for funny answers or creative team names, as adjudged by the host.

No, Hassan, it's poker chips now

The new hosting regime also carries on the "magic keys" prize format, with numbered poker chips substituted for the previous macguffins. After each round, the first, second, and third place teams receive three, two, or one chips, respectively, and the total points winner after all three rounds gets a free pitcher and eight chips. The host then draws a random number, and whichever team holds the chip with that number wins their choice of grand prize: a $50 Cove gift certificate, or the contents of a mystery box.



Food and Drink: Won't thrill you. I also tried a Blood Alley beer which I didn't care for in the least.

This blog reviewed The Cove back in 2012; since then, however, the old Kits watering hole has gone through two changes of hosting duties, so we thought it prudent to give it another go -- especially since Cascade's What the #!*@?'s recent retirement has left a great void on the Monday night quiz calendar.

Reading back over that review, it seems things under the new stewardship are substantially the same as they were then, but there seem to have been a few changes, mostly for the better.

I never tried the Cove quiz under the previous host, but the new emcee tends the helm well. Chris writes the questions himself and his tastes incline somewhat to the geeky; last night we got a point last night for knowing that Peppy's famous exhortation in Star Fox 64 was "Do a barrel roll!" and I'm sure future weeks will have similar such content in store.

As opposed to the previous two freelancers, Chris is an in-house host, doubling as Cove's marketing manager, one especially pleasant consequence of which is that he can give out free drinks essentially whenever he pleases, which is quite often. Come up with a witty joke answer and you've got a very good chance of winning your table a round of shots. And on the subject of complimentary spirits, the night I was there, the quiz was apparently sponsored by Canadian Club who had brought in a pair of Cactus-Club-waitress-types to dole out Dixie-cup-sized samples of their whisky.

As for my nitpicky critique, I'll say this: if you want to hint an answer on facebook, that's OK; give the answer outright, if you must; but something's wrong when the question is so impossible that you could only get it right from being given the answer. For example, who played "Stock Boy" in Home Alone? His subsequent appearance in 1997's Picture Perfect notwithstanding, I'd place Jim Ryan well outside the canon of suitable quiz answers. This goes a bit beyond the pale of rewarding those who follow your social media to additionally punish those who don't. (I also challenge the figure of two-hundred-something total deaths in the Game of Thrones series so far. The Battle on the Blackwater alone claimed several thousand casualties! Did we mean named characters? Please specify next time!)

The more I think about it, the more I like the magic keys prize format. While elite teams are still rewarded for their knowledge, lesser contenders can still compete and have a good chance of taking home the big prize. No more juggernauts running wild week after week. Call it enforced egalitarianism, but this seems like an idea too good to stay confined to one venue -- don't be surprised if every quiz in town is giving out poker chips, keys, ping pong balls, or buttons before long.

Our last reviewer had it about right the last time. This is a strong quiz with a good host, a fun mechanic for giving away the big prize (it was a full-size metal toboggan this week!), and the steady flow of free shots and pitchers are a pleasing addition.

Darby's now running monthly league competition

Darby's pub has introduced a new competition that adds an extra level of excitement to their already excellent product.

Throughout November, the results of each weekly quiz will also count towards a monthly leader board; total points scored carry over from week to week, and the team who tally the most at the end of the month win a spectacular prize pack including Steamworks beer and branded glassware, a Darby's gift certificate, custom printed winners' t-shirts with the team name screened on it, and a grand prize yet to be determined. (The prize has been awarded once already, and it was Whitecaps tickets, so expect something equally big).

Quizmaster Katie plans to repeat the Monthly Cup at least through the winter, and perhaps on indefinitely thereafter. As if you needed another reason to go.

This columnist's only complaint is that I keep declaring this or that pub to have the best prizes in the city, and then another goes one better and makes a liar of me. Truly are we living in a golden age of Vancouver bar trivia!

Darby’s runs every Thursday at the corner of 4th Avenue and Macdonald.

Moose's Down Under Trivia

Where: Moose's Down Under, Basement, 830 Pender St. Look for a set of stairs down from street level.

When: 7:00pm Wednesdays. Reservations are required as it fills to capacity

Web presence: Mentions on the restaurant's Facebook page, but no dedicated site

Registration fee: None!

Imagine eating this.

Team info: Strict limit of six to a team

Prizes: The winners receive their choice of Moose's branded swag, or the option to try for a cash jackpot on an ultra-tough final question. 

Format: Four rounds of 10 questions each, with activities between rounds to keep up the energy level. 

Food and drink: is the culinary equivalent of Australian rock.

Britain is usually hailed as the holy land of pub quizzes, but its seems that Australia is no less skilled in the quizzing arts than their former colonial overlords. For proof of this one need look no further than Moose's Down Under, perhaps Vancouver's most thoroughly Australian establishment, whose weekly trivia is also one of the city's most enjoyable.

Held Wednesdays in an ancient lair beneath Pender Street, Moose's quiz packs the catacombs with a suitably callithumpian crowd. So packed is the venue, in fact, that reservations are mandatory; don't make one, don't play.

I recommend you do. For the unbeatable entry fee of zero dollars, you get not only forty big beefy questions, but three intermezzo mini-games, and a customized team nameplate (you make it yourself with house-provided washable markers and 5-by-7 index card).

During my visit, hosting duties went to understudy Rhona, who delivered plenty of energy and humour in the course of what must be one of the greatest all-time understudy fill-ins since Christine Daaé took over for Carlotta at Opéra Garnier. I can't speak to hosting abilities of the usual host, but poor Moose's may have a Luongo-Schneider dilemma on their hands in the near future.

On the subject of music, Moose's forgoes the customary name-that-tune round in favor a straight-ticket of meat-and-potatoes general knowledge questions, which are well conceived, researched, and edited (with one unfortunate exception during my visit; more on that later). They also include two unique house rules that ramp up the excitement levels: first, a majority vote of teams adds four multiple choice options to any question, which boosts scores and encourages comebacks; and second, the winning team has an option to give up their prize for a crack at a cash jackpot on a super-stumper. White knuckle stuff to be sure.

Between rounds, patrons will also enjoy mini-events such as "Porn Star or Pro Wrestler," skittle bowling, and paper airplane contests; the winning team is awarded two extra points and the their choice of a free pitcher or round of shots. This might be a good point to reiterate: there are no entry fees! If the quiz is any indication, Australia must have really bucked that global recession.

Where Moose's falls down a little is speed. The host takes on the burdensome task of marking answer sheets between rounds, which enables a running scoreline but slows things down. As well, the popularity of the quiz creates a snarl in the kitchen that means about half an hour between ordering and food on table. But this is easily mitigated if you check out the menu beforehand and order when you sit down.

Things also went a bit pear-shaped in the final round, which asked players to rank 10 of the 14 largest cities in the world, in order. This proved to be punishingly difficult, with all teams present scoring a collective two points. To her credit, the hostess had the sangfroid to wring some humour out of the fiasco and got a good round of laughs for it.

If you can take transit or otherwise avoid parking, do it. Metered spots around Pender Street go for a usurious $5 per hour, for a total of $15 to park for the duration of the quiz. I found a nearby lot and did a little better, paying $6.50 for overnight, but I sure won't do it again.

So? There is no shortage of quizzes to be found on Wednesday nights, but this one should be your first choice. Solid questions, plenty of entertainment, and a hot crowd hit a triple whammy of excellence that is sure to leave you  thunderstruck.

Relish Pub Tuesday Trivia

Where: Relish GastroPub & Bar, 888 Nelson Street

When: 7:30pm every Tuesday

Web presence: A dedicated page on the bar's website

Registration fee: By donation, suggested fee being a very modest $5 per team. Since proceeds go to charity, I suggest you dig a little deeper, especially since you're going to save some money on drinks (see below).

Team info: Five to a team; each additional player incurs a one point penalty per round. 

Prizes: A princely cache of prizes awaits the top three teams: bronze is worth a round of Fireball shots, runner-up earns a pitcher of Whistler Brewing Company suds, and winners take a pitcher plus a $50 gift certificate.

Format: Three question rounds of ten questions apiece, and two name-that-tune rounds with five songs each. There was a picture round as well, but was not identified as such so I'm not sure if it is a regular feature.

Food and drink: is a tale of two cities. As for food, Relish puts forth a cautious menu that will certainly not offend, but probably not excite. Instead, the drinks are the main attraction, with 18-ounce pints of Whisky Jack Ale to be had for only $3. 

If you love "upscale-casual" dining, dim ambient lighting, decor that aspires to the aesthetic of a night club, and the word "gastropub," you could hardly do better than Vancouver. Over the course of the last 10 years, our fair city seems to have been surreptitiously colonized--Pod-Peopled, if you will--by establishments of this kind, and nowhere more so than the downtown core. (Indeed, a certain Group which we will not mortify by citing here has made these sorts of restaurants their very stock-in-trade.)

Relish ticks a lot of the boxes above, but, to their great credit, their quiz is anything but samey. In fact, Tuesday Trivia must be given serious consideration as one of the best quizzes in Vancouver.

Ultimately the strength of a quiz rests on the quality of the questions, and in this regard Tuesday Trivia is second to none. From start to finish, players are treated to a battery of questions that are thought provoking, original, and inventive. As an example, I might mention one of the tougher ones, which asked "What European language's only contribution to English is the word 'sauna'?" There's a lot to like about this question, not least of all being that it gives knowledgeable players a lot of surface area to attack: linguistically, one would be right in surmising that since it only gives one word to English, it might be a very isolated language; and anthropologically, one would likewise be on the right track in guessing that the speakers particularly enjoy hanging out in steam rooms.

That would indeed be a good sample of the quality of the questions. Even better would be the first round opener, which simply asked "What direction does the Nile River flow?" Yes, of course, it's easy; openers are supposed to be. What I like about it is that even though it is a "giveaway," it is composed so that it still requires a little cognition from the players. Did you really know that the Nile flows North, or did you have to, momentarily, consider its directionality and the positioning of it relative to its receiving body of water (and for that matter, what that receiving body of water is)? By comparison, a lesser quiz might have opted for analytic rather than synthetic thinking, and gotten about the same fraction of correct answers by asking what country the Great Pyramids are in. The difference would be that the Nile question gets players thinking and discussing--in other words, engaging--and the Pyramids question does not.

I could go on, but there are other successes to mention. The tempo between questions, between rounds, and during final score tallying, is right on (you'll be done by 10pm, yet things never feel rushed); the overall difficulty is perfectly calibrated to challenge skill levels from dilettante to genius; and $3 pints speak for themselves.

Evidently they speak to a lot of people, because Relish was already near capacity when I arrived at 7:15 and it was only because a teammate had been there at 5:00pm that I was able to get a seat. Make a reservation or get there extra early lest you risk missing out.

Pressed for a criticism, I would have to concede that the quizmaster, Sean, does a fine job of hosting but doesn't radiate quite the same level of personality as do Eric and Shaun at ANZA or Benji at The Park. That that's the unkindest thing I can say about Relish should say something about how excellent this quiz is.

Closing argument: An unreserved recommendation. Relish's Tuesday Trivia is a sparkling example of quizzing done right. Make way on your calendars for this one.

Samesun Trivia

Where: Samesun Hostel, 1018 Granville Street

When: 9:00pm start time every Thursday. Be careful with parking; a lot of nearby spots become no-stopping taxi zones after 10pm, at which point you will still be quizzing and your car will be towed. 

Web presence: A facebook group with quiz info and a preview of each week's "web question."

Registration fee: Free

Prizes: Each member of the winning team gets two free drink tickets, though they can't be redeemed the same night

Format: Five rounds of 10 questions with no intermission

Food and drink: Fries, burgers, quesadillas, and nachos at prices to fit the backpacker's budget

If your university put on an end-of-semester open air rock concert, you’re already most of the way to experiencing the Samesun quiz: a lopsided and disoriented event packed to the gills with excitable undergrads, best (only?) enjoyed with liberal volumes of alcohol, offering a decent chance of a hookup, and, decidedly, being a less than a cerebral undertaking.

The Samesun Hostel on the Granville strip is the setting for this quiz, which runs every Thursday at 9pm. Given that it takes place in the bar of one of the city’s more popular youth hostels, the crowd is a cosmopolitan melange of young and roisterous backpackers. One benefit of this venue is that even if you can’t find friends to go with you, you can drop in solo and free agent yourself to a table of strangers.

Nevertheless, this one is not for the competitive quizzer. Thunderdome rules apply at all times, permitting oversized teams to compete unpenalized--and often win--and smartphone use to run rampant. The tiebreaker, should two or more teams come in with equal points, is, I kid you not, a boat race. The questions are generally weak, vacillating between bafflingly ambiguous and drop-dead easy. (That said, the waitresses make a circuit of the tables after the first round and will give you a “hint” on one question of your choosing.)

Are there brainy questions? Sure, there are some, though not often, and they have a nasty habit of self-destructing courtesy of the house. One asked what was banned in Mississippi in 1907 and not legalized until 1966. This is pretty good. I myself was mulling several options: interracial marriage and integrated education both, more or less, fit the timeline and locale; so does teaching evolution. Others spring to mind as well. It was here, unfortunately, that the emcee saw fit to neuter the question and declare to the roomful of tippling millennials, “IT’S SOMETHING WE’RE ALL DOING HERE RIGHT NOW.” Oh, well, thanks--points all around then.

That was in round one. The remainder was escalating pandemonium. In round two, the name-that-tune round, six of the ten song clips included the vocalist singing the title of the song. Six. Round three, the “memory round,” featured a raft of questions on an out-of-sync and nigh-inaudible YouTube clip. Round four, the picture round, asked players to identify famous cinematic animals; again, points all around for the giant ape swatting at biplanes from atop the Empire State Building or the extreme close up of the gaping maw of an especially angry looking great white shark.

Rounding things out was the “turbo round,” a ten-pack of true-false questions of doubtful veracity. To give an example: imagine our joy, having three genuine Frenchmen on the team, to be asked whether the average French citizen eats 25 kilograms of snails per year; only a brief tête-à-tête was necessary for them to return an emphatic and unanimous non. Imagine then our surprise to learn that we were “wrong.”

On top of all this, the production is a bit of a mess. The whole thing runs at a sluggish pace, in particular the marking, with about 30 minutes between handing in your answer sheet and the announcing of the scores. Expect to be done no sooner than 11pm, which can be a bit daunting for those with work the next day. The emcee is generally competent, but don’t expect much in the way of amusing badinage or crowd interaction; reading questions aloud is the order of the evening, and even on this there are some stumbles with mispronunciations.

Conclusion: Pub quiz puritans, steer well clear. Head instead to Darby’s quiz, which takes place the same night and is the better product by some distance.

Still, Samesun may have a certain appeal as the head-banging Daytona Beach spring break of the Vancouver quiz scene, and if you can get past the notion that you will probably lose to a visiting cohort of Arizona State sophomores, the cheap drinks and anarchic atmosphere could make for an enjoyable evening.

In fact, the timing makes possible a kind of Thursday night pub quiz golden mile, that might go as follows:

(1) Start at Darby’s at 7pm. For best effect win this quiz and power down your victory pitcher. This usually finishes up about 9pm, at which point...

(2) Pile in a taxi and floor it to Samesun, which begins at 9pm. (If possible, have a confederate be there in advance to snag a table).

(3) Play this one for fun and have lots of drinks.

(4) Ooze out of Samesun around 11pm towards any nearby watering hole to spend the remainder of the evening.

Friday Quiz at the Park at English Bay

Note: the usual blogger is holidaying in Europe. I'm filling in in his absence. So let's kick off with a review of a relative newcomer in the Vancouver quiz scene.

Where: The Park at English Bay, 1755 Davie Street

When: The last Friday of the month, 9:00pm start time, which works out well as it means you beat most of the Davie Street Friday night crowd, and need only pay for an hour at metered spots (of which there should be plenty).

Web presence: A facebook group with quiz info  

Registration fee: $3 per team member—though this is waived for repeat winners (see below)

Prizes: $100 gift certificate to Zulu Records, and a winner’s token (again, see below)

Format: Eight rounds of 5 questions with halftime break after round four

Food and drink: Usual pub fare. Note for vegetarians: the veggie burger is, nominally, the only veg entre on the menu. It’s juicy, plump, and literally oozing with flavor—in other words, a little too good to be vegetarian. Proceed at your own risk.

Downtown’s trendy Davie Village is the setting for one of Vancouver’s newest pub quizzes, the FRIDAY QUIZ at the Park at English Bay. Despite the name, the quiz is actually a once-monthly event (held the last Friday of the month) at the Best Western Sands’ in-house gastropub. The venue is spacious and nicely appointed, though the spatial layout leaves something to be desired, as some tables have no line-of-sight to the quizmaster.

On that note, the evening is expertly emceed by trans-Atlantic transplant Benji Duke. The sideburned Englander boasts over 600 quizzes worth of hosting experience, which is evident in his entertaining stage banter. The production also benefits from the use of a backing soundtrack of quiz-appropriate tunes such as the theme from Countdown and that BBC News music.

As to the quiz itself, the pacing is good and the questions are fun, original, and, like the Cayman Islands, not too taxing. This brings up the FRIDAY QUIZ’s only possible blemish, which one might characterize as the tendency towards “soft” questions. “Soft” here serves double duty, meaning, at various points, either dead easy or not-quite-factual-enough for quiz material.

Of the first kind, there are a few too many questions of the head-slapping, can’t-miss variety, as well as those that can be pretty effectively “meta-gamed” by canny teams. For example, one question asked “what would kill you first: no sleep or no food and water?” and the answer must be sleep because it’s totally counter-intuitive but just crazy enough to be true. The sleep question also illustrates the second type of “soft” question, as it calls upon chain email folk wisdom (see also: a duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and no one knows why or you eat nine spiders in your sleep every year), rather than hard facts, which is probably best avoided when real prizes are on the line.

Paired with an abundance of multiple choice and true-false questions, the upshot of this pattern is a very easy quiz and not much opportunity for anyone to pull away from the pack. When I attended, only five points separated first from last at halftime in a field of a dozen or so teams, and no team scored lower than 15 out of a possible 20. Of course, this improves the chances that any team, from the half-interested barflies and sloshy cougars to the overeducated hipsters, can win any given night, which can hardly be a bad thing.

Speaking of the winning team, FRIDAY QUIZ’s $100 Zulu Records gift card is, on its own, a strong candidate for the richest prize in all of Vancouver quizdom. On top of that, the winning team also receives a nickel-sized pin as a token of their victory; trade in six of them, and your team is exempted from registration fees—for life.

The top and bottom of it: The FRIDAY QUIZ will make a fine addition to any Vancouver trivia fancier’s quiz calendar, thanks to its cool presentation and glittering cache of prizes. It skews a bit on the easy side, but all the better as a warm up for a Friday night out downtown.

Monday Night's Alright for Quizzing

So, as with last time, let's handle this in point form:

• The Cove's quiz night is now being hosted by hosted by the team of Eric Fell (of Anza Club notoriety) and Patrick Maliha. I caught the first half of the quiz this week, and it was a good time.
• But you miss Debbie's quiz? Well, fear not, because that quiz has shifted to Gargoyle's Bar and Grill, on West Broadway. Stop by the website and have a good laugh at how old the welcome images are (Jose Theodore in an Avs jersey!). I imagine the quiz will be similar to the old Cove quizzes, or the ex-Fray (current Cedar Cottage) quiz.
• Between those 2, and the Academic quiz night, it looks like Monday night is the night for quiz in Kitsilano. You're almost as spoiled for choice as on a Wednesday.
• The Cascade Room's Monday quiz was cancelled, and they are trying to reschedule sometime soon. Follow the facebox page if you want to find out when it actually ends up happening

Darby's

Heads up, this quiz is no longer being run by Katie, as the article will try and tell you. Most of the vitals (start time, address, day of week) remain the same, but the format of the quiz might vary a bit. 

Where: Darby's Pub, 2001 MacDonald Street

When: 7PM Thursday, Every week

Web Presence: Facebook page

Registration Fee: Gratuit

Team Info: 7 Brains per table

Prizes: Top team gets a pitcher of beer, AND a reserved table at the next week's quiz - the real prize

Format: 60 questions, split into 2 halves, with 3 10-question rounds in each. Expect to see a themed round, a picture round, and a matching round, followed by another themed round, another picture round, and ending with the music round.

Food and Drink: Food is pretty good, and the beer selection is easily the best of any of the places I've been to a quiz. It will probably stay that way, unless the Alibi Room starts a quiz.

This quiz has been going for a number of years now - they just ran their 112th quiz. I've been going for a few weeks, but have been too lazy to write up a review until now. Anyways, it is a great time, and probably the best quiz in Vancouver that is run every week. It runs quickly, and while the Quizmaster marks all the own answer sheets herself, it goes reasonably fast. There is definitely no "trap you here so you can drink more" mentality to this quiz, which is great.

The questions range from easy to pretty hard, so all can have fun, and the winning score tends to be in the 50-55 range (out of the aforementioned 60). The tiebreaker, which I have only seen once, is excellent. The tied teams get another sheet of paper, and then a trivial pursuit card is read out, and the high score wins. In the event of a tie, it is playoff overtime rules - they keep going until there is a winner. It tends to lead to some sidebets among the non-participating teams as well. This activity is almost surely not sanctioned by the BCLC.

The atmosphere is enjoyable, a good mix of University kids and older folk. It is almost always full, so be prepared to show up an hour early to stake out some space. It can get a bit hectic on Canuck game nights, but the general attitude lately has tended towards quiz over hockey. While I'm positive this trend won't carry over to the playoffs, it is heartening nonetheless. There are ample TVs to catch whichever game you want to watch, though, even when the questions are being asked. Everyone seems nice here.

In the end? A rad quiz, but show up early to grab a table - or win the previous week.