A year of Wednesday night trivia at Brown’s

October 2008.  I didn’t even know there was a brew pub in Troy named Brown’s, or that they offered team trivia on Wednesday nights.  But after my Wednesday night trivia fun was curtailed by the bar owner (he was upset that I was winning every night, and that as one person I technically wasn’t a “team” and every other lame excuse he could come up with), I needed a new place for Wednesday night.

I found that a brew pub in Troy, down on River Street, offered a competitive game.  I called over to find out what time the game started.

“Oh, it starts at 9, but you have to have a reservation.  We’re all booked up.”

A reservation? Booked up? For Trivia??

I asked if there were any tables available on a last-minute basis.

“How many people are on your team?” the voice asked.

“Just me,” I replied.

“A team of one?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Come on down,” the voice answered.  “I can find room for a team of one.”

With that, I began my Wednesday night trivia at Brown’s, also known as the Taproom.  The game was marketedly different from the 20 question game I had played throughout the region.  The host, Ryan West, produced a 60-question game, with each question grouped into one of six subjects.  The first ten-question block could be on vampires, the second ten-question block could be on musicals, etc.  The fifth round was a music round, ten songs would be played and one must identify the artist for each song.  The sixth and final round would have been selected the week before from audience suggestions, so that category could be anything from Sesame Street to serial killers.

It didn’t take long for me to actually appreciate Brown’s – both for the trivia and for the food and atmosphere.  Between the tasty dinners, and the pre-trivia chitchats with the waitstaff and hostesses, it just felt like a really fun place.

Plus, the winning didn’t hurt.  The first time I realized that this game would actually work for me was about four weeks into my trivia stint, when I actually tied another team in score in three consecutive rounds.  Mind you, the team I was playing against was in a semi-enclosed area of the Taproom called “The Trojan Room,” and they couldn’t see me and I couldn’t see them.  In Ryan West’s trivia game, prizes were awarded after each round to the highest-scoring team for that category – if two teams tied, the prizes were carried over, like skins in a golf game, to the next question and those teams would battle to break the tie.

After I had tied the Trojan Room team three rounds in a row, West announced, “I hope you guys know that all eight of you are tied with one guy in the main dining hall.” That caused most of them to peek their heads out of the Trojan Room and question who dared take their prized food and beer winnings.

As the trivia game progressed through the winter and spring, I found that eventually I would acquire something I rarely get – consistent teammates.  Although I’ve had teammates in the past – everyone from my wife Vicki to some of my co-workers, they’re usually there for a couple of weeks when their schedules permit.  But at Brown’s, I actually found a couple of teammates who not only came to the game on a regular basis, but were more than willing to join Street Academy and help win the free eats.

The first consistent teammates I acquired were Jennie and Mark.  Jennie I knew from the Albany Patroons; she was one of the Patroons’ dance team members for a couple of years, and Mark was her boyfriend.  They were previously on a Brown’s trivia team called “Boats and Hoes,” until there was a disagreement among teammates and thery left.  I recognized Jennie, she recognized me, and next thing I know, they’re answering trivia questions with me.  During the two months they were my teammates, Street Academy notched three first-place and three second-place wins, as well as prizes for a lot of beer pretzels, loaded fries and Brown’s signature Cherry Raspberry ale.

Jennie and Mark joined Street Academy after Ryan West left as host.  West received an offer to do promotions in New York City, and it was a job that was too good to pass up.  His scorekeeper, Zac Hilton, became the new trivia host, and West actually wrote the questions in New York and e-mailed them to Zac.  For the people that were used to Ryan West’s hosting delivery, hearing Zac on the microphone was the equivalent of hearing that Van Halen hired the lead singer of Extreme as their new vocalist.

After a few weeks with Zac as host, Jennie and Mark got tired of the trivia scene and stopped showing up.  I went back to my one-man-wrecking crew trivia dominance, although it was tougher to win without an extra pair of brains.

Then, one day, the final “audience-voted” category was questions based on the TV series Arrested Development.  You know why that show got cancelled?  It was because I never watched it.  Never.  Not one episode.  I knew that this category was going to be a washout for me.

Just then, two people came up to my table.  “Can we join your team?” they asked.

“What do you know about Arrested Development?”

“Once we heard last week that this was the category, we sat and watched all the episodes on DVD.”

“Sit down and welcome to Street Academy,” I said.

My new teammates – whom I found out were a professor at Siena named Jeremy and a chemistry major at RPI named Alexis – hit all ten questions and we won a round of porter cake.  And they came back the next week, and the week after that, and so on and so forth.

Last Wednesday was the final night of trivia at Brown’s.  The game had grown at the bar to the point where there was absolutely no room for anyone new to join up – reservations for next week’s game had to be made almost minutes after the current game was finished.

So, starting Monday, October 5, Brown’s Trivia is moving down River Street to Revolution Hall, where the game will have more trivia playing space, a combination of various prizes, and a new team of trivia hosts.

While I will miss Wednesday night trivia at Brown’s, I do have some great memories of the staff there, and the quality of the food has brought me back on non-trivia nights for a meal or a sandwich on the weekend.

So if you want to test your brain, come down this Monday to Revolution Hall for trivia.  Game starts at 9pm, and don’t worry about missing Monday Night Football – you can still watch the game at Rev Hall while you’re trying to figure out that tough trivia question.

And if you don’t get that answer right – and you hear three Ric Flair-influenced “WHOOOO!” hollers rom the other side of Rev Hall – you will know who DID get the answer right.