Lewisburg brewer and retired dentist dies after Ironman swim emergency

Larry Winans helped turn Jackass Brewing into one of Lewisburg’s most recognizable small-business brands, first as a homebrewing partner and later as a co-founder whose brewery became a downtown gathering place. His death after a cardiac arrest during the swim portion of the IRONMAN 70.3 Pennsylvania Happy Valley race has left a visible gap in the business and community he helped build.

Winans, a retired Lewisburg dentist, died after the emergency in the water and was taken to Hershey Medical Center. The race’s swim course is in Foster Sayers Reservoir at Bald Eagle State Park, tying the tragedy to one of the region’s best-known endurance events and to a local landmark just outside State College.

His path to brewing stretched back more than two decades. On Jackass Brewing’s team page, Winans said he started brewing in 2001 with a Charlie Papazian book, a bucket and a stovetop. He spent his first 25 years as a dentist in Lewisburg before, as the company put it, hanging up the drill to make beer full time. That shift made him familiar first as a health-care provider, then as a business owner with a growing presence in the borough’s social life.

Jackass Brewing says its Lewisburg location opened five days before Pennsylvania’s COVID shutdown in March 2020, a precarious start that quickly turned into a test of demand. During the early pandemic, the owners set up a to-go table at the garage doors, and customers lined up into the parking lot for growlers as the brewery’s following grew. The Lewisburg site now includes a 7-barrel brewing system and 12 beers on tap, reinforcing the role it has come to play as both a production space and a meeting place.

The company later expanded to Williamsport in 2023, taking over a restored late-1800s building at 301 West 3rd Street. Jackass Brewing describes the 22,000-square-foot site as home to a first-floor taproom, a full restaurant on the second floor and two floors of event space. The move extended the brand beyond Lewisburg, but its roots remained tied to the business Winans built from a basement hobby into a regional draw.

Jackass Brewing says both locations will continue operating as a tribute to the dream Winans helped create. In Lewisburg, where his dentistry, his brewery and his daily presence overlapped for years, that legacy is now part of the town’s business identity as well as its memory.