Humane Society of Chittenden County Best in Brew: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Humane Society of Chittenden County Best in Brew?

Best in Brew is a charity photo vote staged by the Humane Society of Chittenden County, the animal welfare organization whose shelter operates at 142 Kindness Ct in South Burlington, Vermont. The rules text on the ballot states plainly that the contest is sponsored by the Humane Society of Chittenden County and Four Quarters Brewing, tying a local animal shelter to a local brewery in a single seasonal campaign.

The premise leans into summer. The ballot page asks what says "summertime!" better than "soaking up some sun with your dog and a crisp IPA", then answers with the collaboration itself: a beer carrying a painting of a supporter's dog. Dog owners submit photographs of their pets, the public votes across the open window, and the campaign doubles as a fundraiser for the shelter's work.

Voting runs on GoGo Photo Contest, which hosts the ballot at its own dedicated address rather than inside a media survey tool. Visitors reach the gallery through a View Entries link, read the organizer's terms under Rules, and follow a Participate menu at the top of the page.

When did the 2025 Best in Brew voting window run?

The ballot's own rules text dates the run precisely. The Submission and Voting Period spanned Sunday, June 1, 2025 through Monday, June 30, 2025, opening the first morning at 8:00 AM Eastern and closing the final evening at 8:00 PM Eastern. Entry and voting shared that stretch, so the organizer ran submission and balloting together across the month instead of staging a separate nomination round first.

Only the 2025 run of Best in Brew is confirmed so far. This is the first confirmed edition; whether it returns next year is not yet published; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Beyond the schedule, the public text leaves several blanks. Nothing on it spells out entry eligibility, a repeat voting rule, or how the ballot was organized into categories; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

What the page does show is how the race finished. As voting closed, the leaderboard ranked the entered dogs in this order:

How does a supporter cast a vote in Best in Brew?

Casting a vote

The route through the ballot is short. A supporter loads gogophotocontest.com/hsccbestinbrew, opens View Entries, scrolls the gallery of submitted dog photos, picks the entry to back, and follows the prompts to log the vote. Because submission and voting shared the same June stretch in 2025, newcomers could appear in the gallery right up to the closing bell, and leaders could lose ground at any point while the leaderboard updated.

Page furniture worth knowing

The ballot carries a Participate menu, a View Entries link, a Rules tab, an About Us section and a Sign In control. Whether a sign in or an email verification stood between a visitor and the vote action in 2025 is not spelled out on the public page. Anyone arriving at the address now sees a Contest has ended banner with a pointer toward the organizer's latest campaign, so the live view changes once a run concludes.

For a supporter planning ahead, the practical reading is simple: the gallery and the vote action sit one click apart, the Rules tab is the place any condition lives, and the leaderboard is where standing becomes visible long before the final tally.

Where does Best in Brew fit among Vermont's best of ballots?

Vermont readers meet plenty of public vote programs, and six share the market with this one. The Seven Daysies come from the alt weekly Seven Days, the Rutland Herald and Times Argus each run a Best of the Best survey, the Brattleboro Reformer and Stowe Reporter publish Readers Choice ballots, and Vermont Business Magazine stages its Best of Business Awards. Those are broad newsroom and trade surveys spanning many categories across whole towns or the state.

Best in Brew sits differently. It belongs to a single cause, the Humane Society of Chittenden County, its entries are pets rather than businesses or restaurants, and its payoff is a product collaboration with Four Quarters Brewing instead of a title in a newspaper supplement. Its ballot also runs on a dedicated photo contest platform rather than a publishing house survey, which shapes how the gallery, the leaderboard and the rules text appear to a voter.

How can a supporter spread the word for a Best in Brew entry?

A dog's chances in this ballot rise on repetition and reach. Share the entry's gallery link directly rather than the ballot homepage, so friends land on the photo itself. Spread reminders across the whole window instead of a lone push, since votes accumulated over the full month of June in 2025 and standings moved constantly. The natural audiences are dog owning circles and the taproom crowd at Four Quarters Brewing, whose customers see the prize up close.

Any outside assistance stays subject to the conditions the shelter publishes on its Rules tab, so read those before scaling up a push. Broader tactics that work across public votes are collected in this guide to earning more votes online.