diff --git a/omniduct/_version.py b/omniduct/_version.py
index a70a2cf..f0c7772 100644
--- a/omniduct/_version.py
+++ b/omniduct/_version.py
@@ -39,7 +39,6 @@
 
     'hiveserver2': [
         'pyhive[hive]>=0.4',  # Primary client
-        'impyla>=0.14.0',  # Primary client
         'thrift>=0.10.0',  # Thrift dependency which seems not to be installed with upstream deps
     ],
 
diff --git a/omniduct/databases/hiveserver2.py b/omniduct/databases/hiveserver2.py
index f6aaba0..18c6447 100644
--- a/omniduct/databases/hiveserver2.py
+++ b/omniduct/databases/hiveserver2.py
@@ -97,7 +97,10 @@ def _connect(self):
             self._sqlalchemy_engine = create_engine('hive://{}:{}/{}'.format(self.host, self.port, self.schema))
             self._sqlalchemy_metadata = MetaData(self._sqlalchemy_engine)
         elif self.driver == 'impyla':
-            import impala.dbapi
+            try:
+                import impala.dbapi
+            except ModuleNotFoundError:
+                raise ImportError("Please install impyla or specify driver='pyhive'.")
             self.__hive = impala.dbapi.connect(host=self.host,
                                                port=self.port,
                                                auth_mechanism=self.auth_mechanism,