A bunch of jerks looking to score a free Koozie and stupid stuffed bear or something managed to commit one of the seven deadly sins of D.C.* while at the same time smearing the Queen of Country.
News broke via Jacob Rubashkin, deputy editor for Inside Elections, on X last week about a trivia cheating scandal at Red Bear Brewing Co. Rubashkin, a frequent attendee of the brewery’s Wednesday evening event, posted in a thread, which now has more than 4,300 “likes,” that the reigning champions of the past few weeks were caught using Shazam on an Apple Watch during the music round to bolster their scores. There were also “allegations of Googling.”
The allegations were later confirmed by one of the brewery’s co-owners Simon Bee in an interview with Axios.
Bee says the cheaters have been barred from participating in their trivia going forward, but declined to name them or even the name of their team. It seems everyone is desperate to discover their identities, but in the week since that City Paper has spent trying to identify the dirty rotten cheaters, we have found no one willing to snitch. (Anyone with information can find me at csposato@washingtoncitypaper.com.)
We couldn’t learn their government names, but here’s what we know: The cheaters were a duo that went under multiple team aliases throughout their time competing at Red Bear. Rubashkin says this is a common practice for most trivia teams.
Two of their aliases have been confirmed by multiple sources. The week the team was caught, they were using the name “Single Moms Who Work Two Jobs Who Love Their Kids and Never Stop,” which has not only brought shame on to the cheaters themselves but has tarnished Reba McEntire’s good name as well. The team also previously played under the name “We Asked for the Brit Kate and We Got Kate Britt,” a lame reference to Kate Britt‘s response to the State of the Union.
Ryan Smith is a member of the team that came in second to the cheaters the week they were caught, March 27.
It was “devastating, but fine,” he says.
On the night in question, he says, “one of my teammates went up to collect our prize and she came back and she sat down and she said, ‘Guys, I think the team that came in first was cheating.’ We were like, ‘What, what’s going on?’ And she said that she heard the bartenders talking to the trivia hosts about the potential that the other team was cheating, and they were caught doing it. And we were like, ‘Haven’t they won for a couple of weeks in a row now?’”
Rubashkin posted about the scandal on X a few days later.
“We were furious,” Smith says. “Both because we had come in second to them, but also like, who cheats in trivia? It’s so low stakes and it’s more about just having fun with your friends and the fact that there were people there who were cheating, just kind of takes the fun out of it.”
Indeed, the stakes were decidedly and devastatingly low. Red Bear offers two kinds of prizes at its trivia night. Players can win individual rounds, and they’re awarded with booze. The overall competition recognizes the top three teams, and the first place prize usually consists of a prize pack that includes a hat, a Koozie, some stickers, a Red Bear plushie, and a $10 gift card to the brewery.
Smith says that the scandal has galvanized his team. “We should have won that week, and I think that means that we can win again,” he says. “We are determined to keep on going until we get that first place.”
Red Bear hosts a series of highly popular trivia nights throughout the week. More than 40 teams competed at the NoMa brewery’s April 3 event, when the cheating scandal was revealed.
Players watched in horror as the Quizmasters, William Burlew, Neil Offner, and DJ, replaced their regularly scheduled opening presentation slide that usually celebrated the previous week’s winners with a “very stern warning” about cheating in the trivia games, according to Rubashkin.
Red Bear has taken a proactive stance against the cheating. In addition to banning the offending team, the brewery also started issuing a warning at the top of each game, reminding players about the consequences, which range from excommunication to execution (j/k, j/k but it should).
“It is not Red Bear’s fault, it is not the host’s fault,” Smith tells City Paper. “It was a couple of people who decided that they didn’t want to have fun, they wanted to win, which was a very silly way of approaching bar trivia. We love going to Red Bear. It’s one of my favorite breweries in the city. It’s a fun way to spend our Wednesday nights, so we will continue to be going. And hopefully when we win, nobody will accuse us of cheating.”
Even while Red Bear is now in a position where it has to be hard-asses about cracking down on unfair advantages, the Quizmasters have managed to maintain some of the fun by leaning into the chaos. The theme for last Wednesday’s night trivia: scandals.
*The Seven Deadly sins of D.C., according to City Paper’s exhaustive and completely scientific research include, in no particular order:
1. Standing on the left side of the Metro escalator
2. Muting the go-go music at the Metro PCS store
3. Being annoyed by mumbo sauce
4. Accepting a cash bribe inside an NFL cup
5. Letting the bitch set you up
6. Trying to shop on the Mall
7. And, of course, cheating at trivia, you assholes. Reveal yourselves!
