Evan Handmade Briars

Evan Handmade Briars was a one-man American pipe workshop run in the town of Rozel, in Pawnee County, Kansas. The single name behind the brand is Mark "Evan" Schloemer, born in Kansas in 1955; the workshop's name comes from the second name the master used in his signature.

Rozel's population stood around a hundred in the 2020 census, and, fitting that scale, the brand never grew a wide distribution network or a regular catalogue of models. Pipes emerged one at a time, at the pace the master worked.

A Limestone Mouthpiece Signature

The detail that made the workshop memorable was the pale yellow inlay set into the mouthpiece. While most American makers reach for a silver dot, white acrylic, or colored resin at this spot, Schloemer chose instead to cut and set Kansas's own limestone. This stone comes from the state's near-surface marine sedimentary layers: Kansas lay under the waters of the Western Interior Seaway through the Late Cretaceous; when that sea retreated south roughly sixty-six million years ago, thick limestone-rich layers were exposed. The small yellow dot on the mouthpiece was thus both a brand mark and a nod to the geological identity of the ground it was made from. The Western Interior Seaway, according to the geological record, formed roughly a hundred million years ago and retreated completely by the end of the Cretaceous; it was a shallow inland sea that split North America in two, and Kansas's limestone beds are a remnant of that period. For the general technique of inlay work, see the mouthpiece craftsmanship entry.