Another street closed for another March Madness party; 3 new brews to debut

The day the NCAA basketball tournament rolls into town, a Wichita brewery will introduce a “peach basket wheat” ale in honor of James Naismith, who famously invented the game by nailing peach baskets to the wall of a YMCA gym.

Third Place Brewing, a downtown brew pub at 630 E. Douglas, has gotten city approval to use a section of Santa Fe Street for four days for an indoor-outdoor watch party in conjunction with the March Madness tournament weekend at the nearby Intrust Bank Arena.

Closing Santa Fe at that location won’t affect traffic to and from the arena. The street is accessible only from the north at First Street and dead-ends at Douglas, so there’s no way for cars to get through anyway.

Dawn Heady, the Third Place taproom manager who is coordinating the event, said she expects a big crowd as thousands of tourists descend on Wichita for the four-day event, which will feature eight teams competing for two places in the tournament’s “Sweet 16.”

“We haven’t had the NCAA tournament since 1994 and that was up at the (Kansas) Coliseum,” Heady said. “This is going to be a new experience for all of us because it’s the first time we’ve had it downtown.”

Unlike some other downtown parties, the Third Place event will run every day the tournament is in town – March 14 to March 17.

The brewery will be open from 9:30 a.m. to sometime between 10 and 11 p.m. each night, depending on the game schedule, which hasn’t been annouced yet, Heady said.

In addition to the peach basket wheat, Third Place is also brewing up an oak-aged Irish red beer and a raspberry pale ale, which will be introduced on the Friday of the tournament weekend, she said.

The brewery will set up extra TVs so fans can keep track of games taking place elsewhere in the country. And a continuous rotation of food trucks will sell eats from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, Heady said.

Third Place’s event joins a robust schedule of NCAA parties downtown that weekend, including the city-sponsored Fan Fest, a block west at St. Francis and Douglas on March 15, and “Courtside on Commerce, the Alley to Excitement,” south of the arena on the two game days, March 15 and 17.

This story was originally published February 26, 2018 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Another street closed for another March Madness party; 3 new brews to debut."