The fifth annual DC Beer Week gets under way today with the mad geniuses at Brewery Ommegang and the Washington City Paper presenting “Hop Chef: Special Edition” that will serve as the official opening of an entire week dedicated to the nectar of the gods.

The eight local “Hop Chef” toques will start up their beer and food pairings at 6:30 pm at the Longview Gallery in downtown (1234 9th St. NW). It’s $55, and you can purchase tickets on the DC Beer Week site here.

If, however, you’d like a helping of surrealism to get things off to a start in Beer Week, restaurant/watering holes Pizzeria Paradiso in Dupont Circle and Meridian Pint are getting together with brewer friends Stillwater and DC Brau for their Exquisite Corpse release party today. They will mash-up their collaborative beer efforts, a four-course dinner and the parlor game that the surrealists came up with whereby people collaborate in a collage-like manner on, say, a poem. Things start at Meridian Pint (3400 11th St. NW) at 4 pm. Tickets are $65 and available at Eventbrite.