Mykhola IPA
Umanpivo

Umanpivo "Mykhola (Микола) IPA"
500 ml brown glass bottle, coded "LOT 2170" and sampled on 05/03/2026
$4.49 @ Total Wine & More, Claymont, DE

Notes via stream of consciousness: It's poured a deep golden body beneath a thumb's width of white foam that seems to be holding very well. It has a fingerprint-through-the-glass clarity that I love, and I can see that there's some carbonation to it as there are plenty of tiny bubbles rising quickly within. In the nose there's some citrus, flowers, pine, and herbs atop some grainy malt. So far, so good. Let's give it a taste - wooomp whaaahhh (sad trombone) - it actually has some bitterness to it, which is unusual for Микола / Mykhola beers, but it's not a pleasant bitterness. The malt is a bit too full in my opinion, and too sweet. It feels sticky on the palate, and both sweet and bitter at the same time. It's 5.0% ABV which probably cuts it in terms of alcohol for an English-style IPA but those are also more thoroughly fermented. As for hops I'm getting more of a just resinous character than pine, although there is some, and the citrus side is difficult to find leaving it mainly herbal and floral. The hops are dull, and it has a kind of dusty earth note overall. The malt is also a little bit honey-like, which isn't really working for me, but hey, I'm sure there are people that love this. Of all of the Микола / Mykhola beers that I've tried this one has the most bitterness, the most dryness, the most hops, the most carbonation, and the best overall appearance yet I prefer their sweeter and softly carbonated beers as they're more rounded. They're still out of balance, leaning too heavily towards sweet malt, but all of their components work together which is what I mean by rounded whereas this one has the bitterness sticking out, the hops sticking out, and the honey-like sweetness of the malt sticking out. All of a beers components should work in unison, or at least not bump up against each other, but that's not the case here. I still think it's an interesting beer, and I'd suggest that if you come across it you give it a try just to see what the hell I'm talking about.
Review #9,513

 

Picked up from a local beer store, this is from a brown 500 ml bottle. It pours a golden color with a light haze and a soapy white foam. The aroma has a pleasant, soft bready malt quality along with some floral and herbal hop scents. The taste is sweet up front, followed with a firm mid-taste bitterness. Full in body and drinkalbe. Lingering hop bitterness in the finish.

(500 ml bottle, LOT2070; purchased off shelf at Total Wine today... decanted into a proper nonic pint)

L: clear, light amber liquid; huge foam build, had to pull off pour... damn, the foam looks monumentally fantastic, moussy crevasses... kind of looks like a secondary in the bottle, due to the crazy foam production... head retention top tier, lacing copious... one of the best-looking IPAs I've encountered, wow!

S: smelling skunk once cap popped... tennis ball, tennis green, apricot hard candy... honestly, quite (continentally) hoppy... dried fruit (apricot, mango dust) gets heavy not long into it... very (old) English

T: spicy grass, honey in light pekoe tea... pancakey malt... aftertaste dry with dried yellow fruit flourishes... increasingly more hop content imprinting on the senses as it goes: peppery, leafy, citrus peel oily... its bitterness as acidic as it is herbal... malty, but donut-doughy, with somewhat subdued underlying crystal malt character

F: pinging bitterness pulses the tongue, tingling thereafter, while the hop and booze aromatics stoke a frictive heat at the top of the palate, somehow penetrating through to the entire nasal cavities (my inner-outer nose rolls is rosey)... teasing with texture up front, but fanning out softly like a dry citrus-oily gin drink

O: skeptical because the bottle date was obscure; not showing obvious artefactual decline... surprisingly dynamic, punchy-bitter... they got more on the shelf, and I might not be able to help myself snagging the remainder at that reasonable pricing... this is clearly a modern English-leaning IPA - educate you (2490)

Pours a bit of a mini-gusher, nothing horrible with a slight cloudy gold with 2 fingers of wispy pearl colored head. Never quite drops bright, great head retention & lacing

S: Some breadyness, some diacetyl, grassy notes once warm

T: Bready sweet, a little bit pear & herbal hops, mineral dryness & grassy notes. More sweetness, plenty of grassyness & some dryness once warmed up. Finishes a little dry with grassy bitterness, some bready sweetness & some soapy notes

MF: Medium body, creamy carbonation

No idea how old this beer is, there's a lot # A clear one & done. I'd take this over an AAL, but not by much. I rounded up because this didn't get TLC at the retail POS for sure

 

Very hazy, cloudy beer with a small head. Hops are very faint, almost not detectable. Taste is a bit better, but still pretty low in the hops, like even less than Bass, which is labeled "IPA" in small letters (or was a few decades ago). Still, it's not a terrible pale ale, just unexceptional. Kinda sweet in the finish.

Well, there's a beer from Ukraine, first I've had. I won't be buying it again.

 

 

Poured from a brown 16.9 oz. bottle. Has a very dark golden color with a 1/2 inch head. Smell is of malts, caramel. Taste is caramel malts, light pine, easy drinking. Feels medium/full bodied in the mouth and overall is a pretty good beer.

From the half liter bottle, it pours a "honey blonde" color with a very nice, thick white head that slowly reduces and leaves lacing. The nose gets some grassy ( or piney, my nose is not quite perfect) hops and some light malt. The mouth gets a big initial hit by the resiny hops, followed by a nice slightly bitter maltiness. Mild aftertaste.

 

Pours a foamy airy almost 1 finger head with fair retention, a bit of lacing, mostly clear honey blonde color

Nose has some of that Eastern European malt-extract aroma, some cereal malts, grainy, fair floral herbal slight citrusy and piney hops

Taste fair sweetness from the cereal malt, a touch of that malt-extract flavor typical of beers from Eastern Europe, sweeet candy sugar notes, then hops with fair bitterness, a touch piney but more herbal earthy, getting a bit spicy on the semi sweet finish with more medium to a bit higher bitterness

Mouth is med bod, med frothy carb

Overall actually pretty good, gotta get past that malt-extract flavor typical from Eastern European countries but it's not a lot, and there's some decent malt character, and hops were nice