Which is the only capital city in the world that is named after a U.S. president other than Washington, D.C.?

That's the type of talk you'll hear from Milwaukee Quizmaster founder, Ryan Wickens, who holds pub quizzes across Milwaukee including one at Caffrey's Pub, 717 N. 16th St., Monday nights at 9 p.m.

Each quiz — one a night, usually lasting two hours — consists of 30 questions split into six different rounds: History & Politics, Geography, Music, Film & "Tele," Sports & Leisure and Bonus Round. The last round varies week to week. Past Bonus Rounds have been Science & Nature, U.S. Presidents, Movie Quote Clips and Art & Literature.

Teams receive two pieces of paper — one to answer the questions and another filled with pictures that aid a few questions.

Wickens allows teams no more than eight players and no electronic use is permitted. Each quiz costs $1 per player.

Teams compete weekly for $40, $20 and $10 Caffrey's bar tabs. Wickens keeps track of each team's score on his Web site milwaukeequizmaster.com. The winner of the eight-week league is granted a $50 bar tab. The first eight-week league of the semester starts Monday.

Wickens, who turns 24 Monday, had his current question-making business thrust upon him. He was bartending at The Brittin, 4473 N. Oakland Ave., in 2006 when he was asked to host a quiz.

"People really started to take to my particular brand and before you knew it, I got recommended to another place," he said.

Unlike other bar trivia in Milwaukee, Wickens' brand allows teams to brood over questions instead of giving each answer a time limit.

"I think my game breeds a lot more interaction between the players on each team just because they have more time to answer the questions," he said. "A lot of people would say to me 'aren't you afraid the people are going to cheat?' The thing is you would only cheat if you wanted to win the bar tab and 95 percent of the teams that play do not care about the money."

Wickens' style has caught on. He hosts pub quizzes at nine different bars in the Milwaukee area including The Milwaukee Ale House, Mo's Irish Pub, Trinity Three Irish Pubs, Fifth Ward Pub and Fanatics Sports Central.

"Since I started, I haven't lost any of my clients," Wickens said. "Every bar has been with me since they picked me up, which means it must be working."

Wickens has had to hire extra workers to help with the quizmaster duties.

Kyle Rancourt, senior in the College of Communication, runs the quizzes at Caffrey's. He's not a high-energy guy, but he makes teams laugh with his dry humor. He enjoys being a quizmaster because it's entertaining to watch teams argue over answers.

"It's trivia. It's trivial," he said.

Wickens writes the questions the weekend before the quizzes. He has a tendency to put some of the same type of questions in his quizzes. Always expect a soccer question. Wickens played soccer at Cardinal Stritch University. James Bond — Wickens is English — and comic book questions usually show up as well.

In order to bring traffic to his Web site, Wickens posts an "Article of the Week," which a question is drawn from for that week's quiz.

"The 'Article of the Week' is a free answer but sincerely I hope when people read it, they learn a thing or two," he said.

So how does Wickens think of his questions?

"That's the question that everyone asks me," he said. "I just point to my head like this."

The only other capital named after a U.S. president is Monrovia, Liberia.