In a college town with dark, cold winter nights, the pub trivia nights are especially jam-packed in mid-winter. At a recent Wednesday trivia night at Cranky Sam Public House, 30 teams filled every seat in the place, awaiting the arrival of host Reid Reimers. A little after 7, he strode in bearing his laptop and an unsettling porcelain doll, a typical example of the kind of bizarre, thrift-store dummy prize he likes to award third-place finishers.
Reimers, a seasoned stage actor also known for his iconic portrayal of Dr. Frankenfurter in the recurring local production of “Rocky Horror Show,” hopped on the mic, and the venue hushed as he explained the rules with a hefty dose of sass: “Also folks, this is just trivia, so have fun. Just breathe, you pedantic turds.”
As the Cranky Sam crowd huddled around their answer sheets, hashing out possible solutions to questions like, “What inert gas is the third most common in earth’s atmosphere?” a similarly packed house gathered at Stave and Hoop, where longtime trivia host Lando Hughes brought his own brand of cheerful sass to a contest of wits. (Wednesday is a big night for trivia in this town, but there are many more—check out the roundup below)
Hughes’ trivia features more rounds and starts out easier than Reimers’, but by the end of the night, competitors at either trivia will be hushed, heads together, whispering—or yelling, depending on how many beers they’ve had—while brain cells fire on topics ranging from basic chemistry to Carthage.
For a few hours each week, trivia hosts get to wield a strange power of being the one person in a crowded room who determines right and wrong. It’s the culmination of hours of work and a passion for nothing less than the truth.
Hughes says he spends three to five hours the night before a contest to come up with 60 to 70 questions, including pictures and music. He keeps a lengthy document with old trivia rounds to ensure he doesn’t use the same question twice in six months. Science, history, current events, Christmas song lyrics, Homer Simpson quotes, it’s all fair game. He started out running a trivia night at the Silver Slipper about 12 years ago when his wife and friends worked there; he remembers the starting pay being $25 and free drinks for the night. The compensation is better now, but he really does it for the love of the game. He was stoked when his friends at Stave and Hoop invited him to launch a new trivia night in late 2020.
“I’ve always loved trivia,” he says, but swats away any opportunity to brag about his own smarts. “I know a lot of random facts but generally I’m an idiot.”
Pub trivia contests are a way to draw crowds into a bar on nights that might be slow otherwise, but it also represents something as close to a sport as many non-sporty Missoula denizens will ever get. There’s also something democratic in the assembly of trivia goers: the most well-educated, highly literate people in the room might not be guaranteed to win, although it can certainly help. Hughes is one of few hosts who does not limit team sizes (it’s also a difficult thing to keep track of in a crowded, dim bar.) He says more than six people on a team can be a disadvantage anyway, as they talk over one another and can’t come to a consensus.
“I would build a winning team with people with different knowledge bases, like one person with geography, another with current events, another with history,” Hughes advises. “And then there are some nerds that just know their shit in general.”
Reimers—who also hosts trivia on Thursdays at Western Cider, as well as other one-off trivia events around town—doesn’t try to make his questions easy by any stretch, but strives to make sure no single round is so specific or so difficult that it’s utterly demoralizing. (Unless your team is lousy at word puzzles, because he loves inventing his own word puzzles.) He spends about eight to 10 hours a week putting together his questions, taking inspiration from sources everywhere. He exhaustively checks his sources, and has no time for trivia hosts who use apps or paid services to source their questions.
“I take a lot of time to write the questions very specifically so there is only one answer,” Reimer says. “I’m a pedantic turdbag enough that if there’s three possible answers, I’m very much the shove-the-glasses-up-the-nose, ‘well actually’ guy myself. Trivia is kind of made for folks like that.”
Though Missoula’s long-running trivia hosts don’t often get the opportunity to compete in other quiz nights, they would seem to agree on the right attitude to bring to a night of pub trivia: It’s not about winning the bar tab. It’s about getting to show off your knowledge a little and learn about our rich, diverse world in a way that our siloed adult lives might not allow us to do from 9 to 5. And anyone can be good at trivia.
“Maybe more important than being smart, you have a lot of inquisitive people in this town,” Reimers says. “I want to challenge people to pull out stuff they haven’t thought of in a long time. Like stuff you should remember from third grade. So my goal is that people will learn something.”
Missoula Weekly Trivia Night Roundup
Trivia contests are subject to change; always call the venue in advance if you’re not sure. They may also have intel on how early you need to arrive to secure seats for everyone on your team. At most venues, larger parties should try to arrive 1 hour to 45 minutes early to guarantee a table. First place prize is usually a bar tab between $30-$60.
Monday
- OddPitch Brewing: Signups at 5:30 PM, 6-8 PM; teams limited to six. Prizes.
- Katie O’ Keefe’s Sports Bar: 8 PM with host Carlos Coleman. Prizes, plus a shot round (free shots for the team with the most points in that particular round). Category hints posted in advance on Facebook.
Tuesday
- Imagine Nation Brewing: Signups at 5:30 PM, 6-8 PM; teams limited to six. Prizes for top three. Usually general knowledge, but beware of occasional theme nights such as Harry Potter or the 1980s; call ahead to check.
- Old Post: 7 PM, call for details
- Ole Beck VFW: 8 PM with host Carlos Coleman. Teams limited to six, prizes. Category hints posted in advance on Facebook.
- Fraternal Order of Eagles #32: 7 PM with host Sol, drink specials and prizes.
Wednesday
- Stave and Hoop: 7 PM with host Lando Hughes, no team size limit, prizes.
- Cranky Sam: 7 PM with host Reid Reimers, teams limited to six, prizes.
Thursday
- Western Cider: 7 PM with host Reid Reimers; teams limited to six, prizes. No picture round or video screens.
- Iron Griz American Bistro: 7 PM; teams limited to five; drink specials and prizes. Each week’s categories are usually mentioned in advance on their MissoulaEvents.net page.
