Hey, Take Your Hands Off My Spotted Dick!

Although it's an overused word in the realm of Quizmaster, Quizmaster Cup III at the Milwaukee Ale House this Sunday April 18th, 2010 was nothing short of MASSIVE.

(A full photo album of pictures can be found at our Facebook fan page).

Epic is another word that's been thrown around to describe "the best pub quiz event in the history of Milwaukee."

Simple as that.

Going into proceedings we would have to say that at least a dozen of the 22 teams that participated in the quiz extravaganza of the century had a serious chance of hoisting the Cup come 4pm Sunday afternoon.

Former Quizmaster Cup I and II Champions The Fancy Restaurants and Cock Harvest (below) were in the house to aspire to the ultimate Milwaukee trivia glory again, but we had a feeling a new champion may rise to the occasion on the day....

They came dressed to impress, and insisted they take the prize for best dressed team, but we're afraid that contest was over before it even began, as those formidable Fuckin' Wolverine's took home the "Box of Britishness" for their efforts....

We were going to just wrap Pete in a box and rent him and his own Spotted Dick out for 24 hours but we thought team's would prefer the real thing...

The event got underway though with a new and unique "Minute of music madness" round, in which teams had to name as many songs as they could - although they weren't told the music video and audio did not match!

This was followed up with the first Drink While You Think bracket....

And throughout the quiz teams were eliminated in the various brackets, with the Final Four hoping to take home a case of beer for each player on their team as their reward.....

The Final Four of Drink While You Think was nothing short of intense....

Although it was marred by a mark of controversy as there was some pen-snatching apparent at the crucial moment....

Every man for himself!

In the end though it was the familiar faces of Terry Shivo jokes that took home the cases of beer and are becoming known as "the People's Champions!"....

But while all came to drink, some actually came to think as well, vying to take home the gold medals, $200 bar tab and coveted Quizmaster Cup....

The quiz was laid out a little differently than most were used to, but in the end it was close, with Dead Babies Will Save Michael J Fox taking a memorable third place....

While Quizmaster Cup first timers Coitus Interuptus took second place....

Although in the end, just two points ahead of the Coitus crew it was Miltown Junks, one of the longest-serving Quizmaster teams, who took home the gold on their third time of asking at Quizmaster Cup....

Quizmaster mastermind and founder Ryan Wickens would like to send out a personal thank you to all the teams that participated, and for making his job the second greatest in the history of mankind (after playing for West Ham, of course). We'd like to also thank our sponsors for providing us with great prizes for the quizzers!

And once again a full photo album of pictures can be found at our Facebook fan page.

You guys are awesome. Quizmaster Cup IV has a lot to live up too!!!


Until next time Milwaukee, drink while you think...

Sunday April 18th, 2010 Quizmaster Cup III Scores:

1. 178 Miltown Junks
2. 176 Coitus Interuptus
3. 173 Dead Babies Will Save Michael J Fox
4. 172 And Just Missing Out on the Prizes
5. 171 The Fancy Restaurants
6. 171 Terry Shivo Jokes
7. 169 In My Pants
8. 169 And By Points I Mean the Number of Men I've Banged!
9. 168 Fuckin' Wolverine
10. 167 Cock Harvest
11. 165 Team of Destiny
12. 164 Piss and Shake
13. 163 Suck It Trebek
14. 162 What If Chloe O Brien and Mcgyver Got Together? Think About It
15. 161 Team Team
16. 157 G Force
17. 157 Rainbow Butt Monkeys
18. 152 Quizmistresses
19. 151 What's Soccer?
20. 151 When Doves Cry
21. 138 Boobs and Brains
22. 125 3 History Geeks

Quizmaster Cup Tickets on Sale Today at Noon!

Tickets for Quizmaster Cup III go on sale today at Noon! Last time out the tickets sold out within a few days, with the best seats taken in the first couple of hours, so please hurry!

All the details can be found below or at QuizmasterCup.com...

It Takes More Than A Bartender To Make the Bar

As OnMilwaukee.com's Bar Month comes to a close this week, we're all reflecting on the ever-fun, interesting and profitable industry that has helped Milwaukee thrive for years. At tonight's second annual Bartender Olympics, we pay tribute to a sampling of the city's bartenders -- those faithful drink slingers who fill our glasses week after week.

An attentive and skilled staff of bartenders can turn good bar into a great one, but there are other factors in play here, too. While the barkeeps are busy getting all the attention and raking in the tips, we realized there is a whole cast of players doing their share to ensure the local tavern remains a fun place to socialize and relax....


The Quizmaster

Ryan Wickens isn't just any ordinary bar trivia host; he's the Quizmater, and for good reason. When the British-born trivia junkie moved to Milwaukee at age 18 to attend Cardinal Stritch University, he started tending bar at (where else?) the former BritInn. It was there that he launched his live-host bar trivia service, British Pub Quiz. Fans flocked and today, his team of four hosts pub quizzes in 15 bars in the Milwaukee area for or five nights a week.

It's his full-time job and it involves a lot more than asking random questions of drunk people. He's involved in every aspect of the business, from accounting to maintaining the Web site to personally writing each week's questions so as to query about the most current topics affecting Milwaukee, the U.S. and the world.

He takes it seriously, but also knows his way around a good time. His motto, after all, is "drink while you think."

"It's something unique and different to do on a night when you have nothing else to do," he says. "Some take it quite seriously, but at the end of the day, it's meant to be an escape from everyday life and have a drink. Learn something new while sitting in a bar."

People love it -- and his British accent.

By Julie Lawrence
Onmilwaukee.com staff writer

Read the full story at OnMilwaukee.com

Quiz Night Coming to Motor March 2nd...

Milwaukee-based Quizmaster is delighted to announce it will be teaming with another Milwaukee company in the coming weeks.

A name synonymous with Milwaukee, Harley-Davidson (trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the letters HOG!), opened it's museum in the Menomonee River Valley on June 1st, 2006. The Museum features some fantastic exhibits, including the current "Harleywood" exhibit which runs until Sunday March 14th, 2010, and two great places to eat.

Motor Bar and Restaurant
The eclectic bar, across from the Harley-Davidson
museum, will host it's first Quizmaster event on
March 2nd, 2010 at 7pm, and every Tuesday thereafter

Motor Bar and Restaurant will be a new destination for trivia in Milwaukee on Tuesday nights, as the bar will be hosting Quizmaster between 7-9pm every Tuesday evening starting March 2nd, 2010.

Motor has been hosting trivia (in-house) since the new year, courtesy of its Archives staff members, but they have decided these employees are needed back at their "day jobs." So, they have decided to bring in the quiz professionals!

When Quizmaster takes the reigns on March 2nd it will also be the start of a six-week-long trivia league, which will award a $200 Motor gift certificate to the league champion and $50 for second place. Weekly prizes will be awarded each Tuesday too, so don't worry if you're not committed enough to show each week.

A full list of rules and regulations can be found at our about page.

Drink Specials and more details on prizes will be announced in the coming days!

Bar Leagues In Milwaukee

More than just sports
By Sarah Biondich of the Shepherd Express

Milwaukee plays host to an enormous bar league culture that offers its participants an opportunity to play games, make friends and unwind in the clubhouse, which, in this case, is a bar. Leagues operate year-round, and offer a range of activities to suit your personal taste, from old-school bar games such as darts and billiards to sports like volleyball and Irish hurling, from drinking games such as beer pong and flip cup to activities that require only brainpower, like team trivia and fantasy sports.


From a bar or tavern’s perspective, the advantage of hosting a bar league is threefold, according to Ryan Wickens, founder of the popular Quizmaster Trivia and Bradford Beach Soccer League. In many cases, employees of the bar play on the bar’s team, which provides motivation and improves morale in the work environment. Also, players wear the bar’s jersey or T-shirt, which promotes the business. Thirdly, and most importantly, in exchange for paying a team’s registration fee to play, the bar can expect the team, as well as friends and family members who attend the game as spectators, to return to the bar for drinks.

From a player’s perspective, the advantage of playing on a bar league team is that, as mentioned, the bar will cover the cost to play, which usually runs $200 or so.

“Plus, bar leagues tend to involve a lot of drinking,” Wickens adds. “So it’s a lot more fun because people don’t take it as seriously.”

Milwaukee Rec

Milwaukee’s bar league culture wouldn’t be nearly as strong and prolific as it is today without the assistance of the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) Department of Recreation & Community Services. The organization was the first of its kind in 1911, when pioneering state legislation assigned the local public school system the responsibility of conducting recreation programs. According to associate supervisor Katie Seitz, bars sponsor approximately 85% of Milwaukee Rec leagues. All of the department’s basketball and volleyball leagues use MPS courts, and the softball, kickball and football leagues play on fields owned and operated by the school district.

Organization

A bar league is a group of amateur athletes who are sponsored by a particular bar or tavern to compete against each other, either as a team or as individuals, in a specific sport. While there are a number of ways to organize a bar league, a round-robin schedule is the most common form of league structure. The goal is for each team to play a relatively balanced schedule against other teams in the league, with the results of the individual games being used to name an overall champion. Many local bar leagues also use playoffs, where teams advance after competing in a regular session of league format.

Brawn

Sports such as volleyball, softball, bowling, basketball, soccer, football and hockey make up the majority of sports played in Milwaukee bar leagues. They require a certain amount of athleticism to be enjoyed, and after a good game a beer from the sponsoring bar is a near-necessity. Games typically played in Europe, like hurling and rugby, have garnered an intense following in Milwaukee, and are eagerly supported by establishments known for pouring a right pint, like the Irish Pub, Judge’s Irish Pub, County Clare, Trinity Three Irish Pubs, McBob's Pub & Grill, the Milwaukee Ale House and Packy's Pub.

It’s Elementary

For those who missed out on elementary school rites of passage like a speeding rubber ball to the face, there are a number of local bars and taverns that sponsor the sports of our childhood, including dodgeball and kickball. The Midwestern Unconventional Sports Association (MUSA) formed during the fall of 2000 in Milwaukee “with the goal of bringing together people in sports which really can not be taken too seriously.” With the help of sponsors such as O’Brien’s Pub, Fifth Ward Pub & Grill, Judge’s Irish Pub, Matty's Bar & Grille and Colonel Hart’s, the organization was able to grow from six teams to more than 300 teams with 4,000-plus participants in six cities and two states.

No Need to Break a Sweat

There also are a number of bar leagues in Milwaukee that require little, if any, physicality on the player’s part. Wickens currently hosts his Quizmaster pub quiz at 13 area establishments. Members of the live-hosted trivia league meet weekly at the same bar and compete in teams against others. Each quiz, which lasts about two hours, is made up of 30 questions that are split into six rounds and total 45 points. The rounds include history and politics, geography, music, film and television, sports and leisure, and a bonus round that varies each week. Team scores over a predetermined number of weeks (usually 6-8 weeks) are accumulated and the team with the highest cumulative score at the end of that period is crowned league champion and wins a prize.

Another popular local bar league activity that doesn’t induce an elevated heart rate is fantasy sports, a game where participants act as owners to build a team that competes against other fantasy owners based on the statistics generated by the real individual players or teams of a professional sport.

Brains

Skill and strategy, not strength and speed, are central to popular bar league sports such as billiards, darts, horseshoes and beanbags (also known as corn-holing). Tavern owners love hosting these kinds of leagues—they don’t require a lot of upkeep, and they can be played with a beer in hand.

Straight-Up Drinking Games

Along with flip cup, beer pong has officially evolved from college rite of passage to an organized league sport with Milwaukee’s own College House Beer Pong League. Teams generally consist of two players who stand at opposite ends of a ping-pong table. On each side of the table, teams assemble three triangles made up of six cups, each filled one-third full with beer. The idea is to land your team’s ball into all of the other team’s cups before they do the same to yours. When one team lands a ball, the other team has to drink the cup of beer.

Whether it involves drinking, sports, brain or brawn, name your game and you’re likely to find a growing number of like-minded friends in Milwaukee’s bar league circuit.

Shillings Quiz Coming Valentines Day...

Shillings Irish Pub, Racine
Set to host Quizmaster every Sunday night at 6pm

Quizmaster is expanding a wee bit in 2010, with our first and only pub quiz in Racine starting at Shillings Pub on Sunday February 14th, 2010 at 6 p.m. Yes, that is Valentine's day, so bring a date! ;)

Shillings, located at 611 Wisconsin Avenue in downtown Racine, will host Quizmaster every Sunday night at 6 p.m.

Quizmaster creator, Ryan Wickens, will take the reigns as the Quizmaster for the cozy Irish Pub, which will offer prizes for first and second place in the amounts of $40 and $20 respectively. There will also be a weekly $10 bar tab prize for the "best team name" as judged by the Quizmaster!! Drink specials will be announced in due course.

Players will be required to pay $1 per person to participate (which you would otherwise spend in the strip club or McDonald's - so please save it for Quizmaster!)

For those unfamiliar with our unique, (slightly) British-themed pub game, find out how it works now!

Watch this space for more details!

Bootleggers Closed: Quiz On Hold!

Bootleggers Bar & Grill, 1023 North Old World 3rd Street, which kicked off its first quiz night with Quizmaster last Thursday January 14th, 2010, will be closed until February 15th, 2010.

The bar will be moving all its drink and food specials to Molly Cools, just one block north of Bootleggers location at 1110 Old World 3rd Street. However, the quiz night will NOT be moved, and will resume at Bootleggers on Thursday February 18th, 2010!

This upcoming Thursday Janaury 21st will be prohibition, with all domestic taps and rails to be 21c each! Yes, 21 cents! Bootleggers will be open for lunch each day and on Friday and Saturday nights it will be serving food from 12 a.m. - 3 a.m., although no alcohol will be served during either of these time slots until it regain its liquor license in February.

Bootleggers Quiz to Start this Thursday...

Bootlegger's Bar & Grill, 1023 North Old World 3rd Street, will become the lucky 13th bar in the Milwaukee area to host a Quizmaster trivia night, when it kicks off it's quiz this Thursday January 14th, 2010.

The bar, known for it's great drink specials and live entertainment will host Quizmaster every Thursday night at 6:30 p.m. with Quizmaster Patrick Rich to take the reigns initially. The bar becomes the second on Old World 3rd Street (after the Milwaukee Brat House) to team with Milwaukee's Quizmaster.

Drink specials and prizes will be announced within the next day so watch this space!