Tonight my trivia team will be playing at the “Corner Brewery,” known officially as Arbor Brewing Company Microbrewery. About 6.5 years ago, my team started playing here regularly. And it was all because of an e-mail from Sam letting us all know about trivia nights at Corner. We’d already played a few trivia nights at Wolverine Brewing Company a couple of years earlier, though never “officially” as a league team. My husband and I were still living in Ann Arbor at the time, and Wolverine had just opened, so we got some pretty good mug club deals. And Sam lived right around the Corner, Roh didn’t live too far away, and sometimes Dave (who worked for U of M) would pop in after work and bam – we had a trivia team! We did quite well, winning some prizes. But it wasn’t in the cards for us to be able to play out there every week…

A Prince-inspired logo for the Corner Brewery my husband designed a few years ago

Fast forward a couple of years, and then came the e-mail from Sam. We thought it sounded fun, and added Brad to the mix. We’d already tested each other by reading Trivial Pursuit questions to each other, so we figured…why not?

We wound up playing at “Corner” regularly for more than three years. The trivia scene had gotten quite crowded and “bustling” there by then – too much so – and we started seeking greener pastures. After that, we still played there from time to time, and even threw our hats in for one more try by playing a season here earlier this year. We wound up placing fourth out of 13 qualified teams at the end of season venue tournament, so no tournament spot for us! Still not a bad showing, especially since we’d missed a couple of games and usually only had four players every week compared to the other teams, who usually had as many as 6-8 players on average (some with a few more).

Some of my players really love playing here still. But it’s really just too much of a pain in the ass to get here an hour early every single game just to reserve a table. And we just don’t have enough players to compete here anymore.

Still…it will be nice to be back here for a night! See the old familiar faces…wait in those old familiar long lines for beer (not)!  We’ll be doing a “send off” for Joel, whom will be moving permanently to San Francisco soon. I don’t think we’re doing much more than buying his beers…and wearing our ‘Pods shirts! He’s never been much of a “regular” with our team, but I’ll still miss him! He’s so…sane – and so classy compared to the rest of us! Always knows how to dress. And he’ll give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. A class act! Bon voyage, Joel!

I’ll have a recap of tonight’s game posted Thursday. Go Pods!