diff --git a/.github/workflows/publish-to-pypi.yml b/.github/workflows/publish-to-pypi.yml
index 60efcc2..8db6af5 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/publish-to-pypi.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/publish-to-pypi.yml
@@ -12,6 +12,16 @@ jobs:
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
     steps:
     - uses: actions/checkout@v7
+    - name: Check __version__ matches the tag
+      run: |
+        ver='${{ github.ref_name }}'
+        ver="${ver#v}"
+        pkg_ver=$(sed -n 's/^__version__ = "\(.*\)"$/\1/p' yt_xarray/__init__.py)
+        if [ "$pkg_ver" != "$ver" ]; then
+          echo "Tag version $ver does not match yt_xarray.__version__ ($pkg_ver); fix __init__.py before tagging." >&2
+          exit 1
+        fi
+        echo "yt_xarray.__version__ == $ver"
     - name: Extract section for this version
       run: |
         ver='${{ github.ref_name }}'
diff --git a/yt_xarray/__init__.py b/yt_xarray/__init__.py
index a2d1e23..68576c3 100644
--- a/yt_xarray/__init__.py
+++ b/yt_xarray/__init__.py
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 __author__ = """Chris Havlin"""
 __email__ = "chris.havlin@gmail.com"
-__version__ = "0.4.2"
+__version__ = "0.5.0"
 
 
 # import the xarray accessor so it is registered with xarray