Pub quiz questions and answers: 50 free questions in five rounds, ready to read out tonight

Here are 50 pub quiz questions and answers, five rounds of ten plus a tie-breaker, free to use with no sign-up. General knowledge, geography, sport, music and telly, and food and drink, written to be read out loud over a busy bar and checked before they went up. Underneath is how to run the night so it pays for itself: about six extra pints covers a quiz you host yourself.

Search for pub quiz questions and you get the same lists copied between newspaper websites, a lot of them written for online quizzes during lockdown, and plenty with answers that have gone out of date since. These are written for a pub crowd on a Tuesday night. Easy enough that every table scores, hard enough that the tie-breaker matters. Read them off your phone or print the page.

The 50 questions

Round 1: General knowledge

#	Question	Answer
1	How many sides does a hexagon have?	Six
2	What is the chemical symbol for gold?	Au
3	How many minutes are there in a day?	1,440
4	Which planet is known as the Red Planet?	Mars
5	What is the largest organ of the human body?	The skin
6	In which year did the Titanic sink?	1912
7	What is the hardest natural substance?	Diamond
8	Who painted the Mona Lisa?	Leonardo da Vinci
9	How many bones are there in the adult human body?	206
10	In HMRC, what does the H stand for?	His (His Majesty's Revenue and Customs)

Round 2: Geography

#	Question	Answer
11	What is the capital of Australia?	Canberra
12	What is the longest river in the UK?	The River Severn
13	What is the highest mountain in the UK?	Ben Nevis
14	Which country has the largest population in the world?	India
15	Which is the largest ocean?	The Pacific
16	What is the capital of Canada?	Ottawa
17	Which Scottish city is known as the Granite City?	Aberdeen
18	Which two countries share the longest international border?	Canada and the USA
19	Palma is the capital of which Spanish island?	Majorca (Mallorca)
20	How many countries make up the United Kingdom?	Four

Round 3: Sport

#	Question	Answer
21	How many players does each team have on the pitch in rugby union?	15
22	Which football club plays at St James' Park in Newcastle?	Newcastle United
23	How many points is the black ball worth in snooker?	Seven
24	How many holes are there in a standard round of golf?	18
25	Which country won the first football World Cup in 1930?	Uruguay
26	What is the maximum break in snooker, without free balls?	147
27	In which sport would you use a shuttlecock?	Badminton
28	How long is a marathon?	26.2 miles (26 miles 385 yards)
29	Which horse race at Aintree is run over 30 fences?	The Grand National
30	How many balls are there in a standard over in cricket?	Six

Round 4: Music and telly

#	Question	Answer
31	Which band released Wonderwall?	Oasis
32	Which Liverpool band had a number one with Hey Jude?	The Beatles
33	Who played Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses?	David Jason
34	With which song did ABBA win Eurovision in 1974?	Waterloo
35	What is the name of the fictional town where Coronation Street is set?	Weatherfield
36	Who sang Purple Rain?	Prince
37	Which Tyneside-born singer fronted The Police?	Sting
38	In Gavin and Stacey, which Welsh town is Stacey from?	Barry
39	Which band released Mr Brightside?	The Killers
40	Who had a 1984 hit with Like a Virgin?	Madonna

Round 5: Food and drink

#	Question	Answer
41	Which spirit is the base of a mojito?	White rum
42	Which country does Peroni come from?	Italy
43	Calvados is a brandy made from which fruit?	Apples
44	What is the main ingredient of guacamole?	Avocado
45	Tequila is made from which plant?	Agave
46	How many millilitres are there in a UK pint, to the nearest whole number?	568
47	What does IPA stand for?	India Pale Ale
48	Which country does Jägermeister come from?	Germany
49	Which Scottish soft drink was advertised as made in Scotland from girders?	Irn-Bru
50	In a beef Wellington, what is the beef wrapped in?	Puff pastry

Tie-breaker

In what year did the Channel Tunnel open? Answer: 1994. Nearest wins.

Round 4 asks about songs, it doesn't play them. That keeps it simple on licensing. If you add a proper music round with clips, read the section on music below first.

How to run it on the night

Read each question twice with a minute between them. Ten questions and the marking take about 15 minutes, so five rounds is an hour and a half with a break after round three. That break is where the money is. Make it ten minutes, call it out, and have the bar staffed for it.

Teams of up to six. Swap sheets to mark and read the answers out. If somebody argues, the quizmaster's decision is final, said with a smile.

What it costs, and what it needs to make

I worked this through in does a pub quiz night make money. The short version: if you host it yourself, the cost is basically the prize. A £25 bar tab costs you well under half that in actual drink. With a bought question pack the whole night comes in around £13, about six extra pints to cover it, and with free questions like these it's less. A paid quiz host is a different sum and that guide has it.

Two things to get right. An entry fee is standard-rated for VAT, so £1 on the door is about 83p to you. And ring the bar tab through the till when it's spent, or it turns up in your next stocktake as missing stock.

The rules that catch pubs out

A quiz is a competition decided by knowledge, which is why you can charge to enter and pay out prizes. A rollover jackpot won by pulling a card or picking an envelope isn't knowledge, it's chance, and chance brings in gambling rules. If you want a jackpot, roll over the tie-breaker instead. The limits for raffles, bingo and the rest are in the games night rules guide.

Music rounds. Playing clips is playing music in public. PPL PRS says you'll usually need TheMusicLicence for music segments in a quiz, and a music quiz is priced as its own session, so what you already pay for background music may not cover it. My music licence guide has the figures. Questions about songs, with no songs played, need nothing extra.

Ideas that keep a quiz going past January

Get the teams to write next week's questions. At the end of the night, give each team a beer mat and ask for one question with the answer on the back. Pick the best and use it next week with the team's name read out, and give them a pint for it. It costs you one pint, it gives you a free question, and it gives that table a reason to come back and hear their question read out. Nobody misses the week their own question's on.

Keep the teams small. One table of eight that wins every week is the quickest way to kill a quiz. Six is plenty.

Do the picture round on the TVs. Reading 50 questions over a full pub is hard work, and a printed picture round costs paper every week. If you've got screens, put the question up as you read it, so nobody shouts "what was that?" every two minutes. I built StockTap TV for exactly this. You run quiz night from your phone, every question goes up on every TV, picture rounds go full screen and the scores get a proper reveal at the end. It also runs a quiz on the screens every 20 minutes on quiet nights, played on customers' own phones, with 6,000-plus questions included. It's £34 a month for the whole pub with a 14-day free trial, have a look at StockTap TV.

Running a Christmas one? I've written 50 Christmas pub quiz questions too, and the sums for a quiet midweek night are in should a pub close on quiet nights.

Common questions

Where can I get free pub quiz questions and answers?

This page has 50 free pub quiz questions and answers in five rounds of ten, general knowledge, geography, sport, music and telly, and food and drink, plus a tie-breaker. No sign-up needed.

How many questions should a pub quiz have?

Forty to fifty is about right. Five rounds of ten, read twice with a minute between questions and time to mark, runs about an hour and a half with a break after round three.

Can a pub charge to enter a quiz?

Yes. A quiz decided by knowledge is a competition, so you can charge an entry fee and pay prizes. The entry fee is standard-rated for VAT. A jackpot won by chance, like drawing a card, brings in gambling rules.

Do I need a music licence for a music round?

If you play clips, yes, it's playing music in public, and PPL PRS says you'll usually need TheMusicLicence for music segments in a quiz. Questions about songs with no music played need nothing extra.

Does a pub quiz make money?

A self-hosted quiz costs about £13 a night with a bought question pack and a £25 bar tab prize, roughly six extra pints to cover, and less with free questions. The break between rounds is where most of the extra trade comes from.