Smart Drinking Games, Who Knew?

If your seasonal affective disorder has you deeply embedded in your couch, head out for a friendly pub quiz. Think of it as Trivial Pursuit with a group of slightly tipsy strangers competing for prizes and bragging rights.

Now, if it's the Twin Cities favorite pub quiz, at Brit's, held on the first Tuesday and Wednesday of the month, you'll need to get it together enough to plan ahead. According to quiz-master Shane Higgins his six-round, $10 quiz is booked a month out.

The night we caught up with the thirty-nine-year-old UK native in Brit's Clubhouse Room, he himself was competing in the perfect pub quiz primer, presided over by self-described "bastard son patriarch" of Twin Cities pub quizzes John Cosgrove. At 6, every Thursday at Brit's, Cosgrove's quiz offers just four rounds— music, pictures, general knowledge, and a short round called the "Wee Tickler."

An Émigré from Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, Cosgrove is an entrepreneurial success with his Cosgrove Trivia Challenge. For corporate and wedding, yes, wedding, gigs, he pulls out a high-tech setup involving hand-held scoring devices and higher prize stakes.

The typical quiz is less formal, designed for good fun for the after-work crowd, and maybe to prime the pump for future bookings. Every quiz has a theme, tinged with Cosgrove's sardonic Irish wit—as much of a draw as the quiz itself.

"It's free," Cosgrove says, "but you do have to give over some of your self-esteem."

Says Cosgrove, announcing team scores and ranking: "Team 'We Don't Suck' . . . well, actually, you do. But I'm sure it's just at trivia and not life in general."