E. Andrew Briars

E. Andrew Briars is an American pipe workshop run at a one-man bench in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The maker behind the brand appears in official records as Edward Jurkiewicz; in pipe circles he was known as "Andrew," and the brand name grew out of these two names. Sources do not agree on the spelling of the surname: the funeral home's and the local newspaper's notices give "Jurkiewicz," while pipe literature uses "Jurkieweicz." According to his obituary he was born on 29 May 1936 and died in Milwaukee on 23 December 2017 at the age of eighty-one.

From Machinist to Pipe Maker

Jurkiewicz's actual profession was not pipe making. He worked for thirty-seven years as a machinist at the Allen-Bradley plant, a maker of automation equipment. According to the obituary, his interests were not confined to the bench; he studied English literature at Marquette University, made oil-pastel paintings, and made time for history reading and learning Japanese. He kept up pipe making alongside these pursuits, as an after-hours occupation.

He learned the craft around Milwaukee's long-established tobacconist Uhle's. Jack Uhle, who guided him, had himself learned the trade directly from Achille Savinelli, founder of the Savinelli brand. In this way, the family tree of a Milwaukee bench connects, two generations removed, to the main line of Italian pipe making. No source gives the exact year he began making pipes under his own name; according to accounts this falls around the early 1980s.

Production and Style

The workshop's scale stayed small throughout. According to accounts, annual production did not exceed about 150 pipes, and the briar blocks he worked came from Italy, Corsica, and Greece; it is reported that he obtained these blocks not directly from log dealers but through Danish makers he knew. He used vulcanite, cumberland, and lucite for his bits.

He is not considered tied to a single style; alongside measured classic shapes he is also credited with freehand work. Surface finishing offered only two options: smooth and sandblast. It is said that in his sandblasts there was no concern to hide the wood's natural flaws, and the texture was left as it was. He also stayed within earth tones for staining; the information that he worked across a range from yellow to red, dark brown to black rests on the brand's own old promotional text and has no independent confirmation.

Stamp and Distribution

It is reported that the pipes carry a script-style "E. Andrew" wording, the word "BRIARS," and a date giving the year of manufacture. This layout of the stamp rests on a single source and has not been independently verified; if accurate, the date stamp would be the most practical way of putting surviving examples in order.

Jurkiewicz distributed his output for many years directly through tobacconist shops; alongside work under his own name, it is also reported that he made pieces for shops under more modest names. The brand never moved to a factory scale, and production stopped entirely with the maker's death. Today E. Andrew pipes circulate only in the estate market and are counted among the quiet examples of the American one-man-workshop tradition.