With the sun so uncharacteristically beaming down the last couple of days, it seemed like it was time to haul out the big bomber bottle of Hopfentea from Perennial Artisan Ales of St. Louis, Mo.

It’s a sour Berliner Weiss-style of wheat ale brewed with a tea blend of mango, papaya, hibiscus and lemongrass. 

I am fairly familiar with those tropical flavors, and I’m not getting a lot of those flavors in this beer. Nonetheless, it’s a nice sour. Makes me wish I had a brat to go with it. Seems like that would be a good pairing. 

Instead, I’ve got a pork tenderloin slow cooking in a chile sauce I whipped up. I’m going to take a short break and make up a plate of the stuff and let you know how it goes with this tart glass of wheat.

Oh, yes! The bright tartness is perfect with the sprouted corn tortillas wrapped around the tender pork braised all afternoon in smoky chile sauce. These two things might have been made for each other. The finely carbonated beer takes the prickle off the smoky heat of the chile sauce.

It’s so good I wish I had room for just one more saucy pork filled corn tortilla, but 3 is my absolute limit. And there’s a carrot cake waiting to be frosted, which, more about later…

No, that pairing does not work at all. But I might have to have another piece just to make sure.

I also cracked open a Solid Gold lager from Founders Brewery. Great name. Good lager. There is, however, an errant piece of punctuation on the front of the can. I’ll leave it at that.