HELM Microbrasserie

Top notch microbrewery. A little far from the main city. Great staff. Great beers. Great burger. Awesome deals on drinks as well.

I like this place, they serve great beer and delicious food. It can get little bit crowded on the weekend so you may want to get there earlier to make sure you have a table.

It was aight. The calamari I had was heavily battered (don’t recommend), but my girlfriend liked her salmon dish. Ping pong was rad. Shuffle board not so much. Mostly just plywood. No sand. Also had weird wood push blocks w different weights, which made it frustrating to play. Décor and overall vibe was solid. Service wasn’t bad either. Good place to go out w friends for a drink (maybe hit up dinner somewhere else beforehand). They also lost points for not having an English menu.

Really confused about the mixed feelings expressed by the other Unilocalers on this page. Went there on a Saturday late evening, when the bar was filled with locals casually dressed, and clearly there to grab a drink and a few bites with friends.
Totally not pretentious, it’s a welcoming local bar that serves what anyone would need on a cold evening: decently priced homemade craft beer. The selection is comprehensive, from the bitter 3.5% pale ale to the 10% stout. Some beers are regulars, such as the Bernard pale ale, but a few rotating taps are usually available – just check the blackboard!
Bar staff is friendly enough for single drinkers who come there by themselves: they can sit at the pool table-​like bar and, plus, there’s free WiFi! The bar routinely plays ‘90s rock.
Food is decent, but I would recommend to eat before coming there: keep in mind that it’s a bar, not a restaurant. Food offerings are overly standard and portions are slightly small for the cost.

Nous avons été au Helm pour assister à «la soirée est encore jeune» et pour résumer la bière est excellente mais la nourriture est médiocre même pour du «bar food».
Nous avons pris les chips maison qui étaient bonnes, le cheese burger au bison (le menu web mentionne au cerf) sans fromage et des calmars /​rondelles oignons qui nous sont restés sur l’estomac

I love this place! Great bar, great local brews, pretty awesome bloody caesar, great friendly staff. If you’re in the area, stop by and taste their ginger beer. Yum!

My favorite Gay Bar in the city hands down!
Good beers, Great décor, Great staff and Great Internet Connection. Love it ;)
Nothing better than a night at the «HELM» ;)

Service de merde. Un barman qui flirte avec une pitoune et son collègue qui s’amuse sur son téléphone. Tout ça pour une douzaine de personne. Bravo les gars !

Very surprised this wasn’t rated as highly as some of the other microbreweries in the area! My fiancé and I arrived right at 3:00PM (well, technically before 3:00PM and accidentally walked in twenty minutes before it had officially opened, oops). Note: Even though the microbrewery itself opens at 3:00PM, if you’re looking for food also, only snacks are available until 5:00PM, when the kitchen opens. We were the only ones there for the first hour or so, and the bartender was WONDERFUL. She offered to let us taste any of the beers on the menu and was extremely knowledgeable about each beer brewed here. Since this was a microbrasserie, OF course we only ordered things on tap; I enjoyed the bitter, the ginger beer, and the Hefeweizen. (Sidenote: If you’re looking for a Hefeweizen that is absolutely BANANAS — and in which you can taste the bananas 100% — this is your beer!). My fiancé enjoyed the IPA.
There’s a ping pong table in the back for anyone interested. As far as the set-​up of the place went, there was a covered patio area near the front (with the front wall of the place being an full size glass sliding door; very nice and breezy. The bar is right in the middle. All of the bartenders who were there were incredibly accommodating and interesting; all in all, we really enjoyed this place and would recommend it.

I feel a bit bad about this 3 stars thing, because it’s a really nice place, it’s cozy, the service was nice and welcoming, it’s super clean, and the menu looks good.
BUT the beers, well, as the 3stars review says, were ok. Just ok.
So I haven’t tried all of them, but I’ll be back and maybe the other ones will get another star to the place, because I actually want to like it.
I went there at 5, they were opening, so it was quiet and a good place to relax with a good beer, no idea how it gets at night and during the weekends.

Extrêmement déçu. Staff were extremely rude to us. When we arrived, not one staff acknowledged us. It was our first time there and we weren’t sure if you sat yourself. So we waited. Someone finally made eye contact and pointed a finger to wait. No smile. He gave us the worst table in the restaurant, despite being mostly empty. When the server came over he appeared nice but spoke extremely quickly and abruptly. The server was not very attentive to us. We had to call out to him every time we wanted something.
We asked for the bill and paid in cash. We left it on the table and were preparing to leave. We slowly made our way out. And when we got outside, a staff member was running to catch up. He accused us of walking out on our bill. He hadn’t even been to the table and he wasn’t even aware that our server had already brought us our bill and was then tidying up our table. We had left cash and tip on the table.
I could see our table from the window and the server was there cleaning up.
I don’t know why this staff member thought we would walk out on our bill. There was no reason to suspect us for that. He was not our server nor did he come to our table once while we were there. We were extremely offended. We felt the staff were behaving rudely towards us and that scene at the door reinforced our impressions. Despite the beer being good, we would never go back nor would we ever recommend this place.

Les bloody ceasars sont vraiment bons, la bouffe est abordables et les portions suffisantes pour partager entre amis. Point négatif: les tables de ping pong! Sinon belle ambiance et les serveurs/​serveuses toujours sympas.

La place à aller pour des bières de microbrasserie cheaps et chères, en plus d’un staff condescendant et menteur qui exigent un certain montant de pourboire sinon ils t’envoient gentiment promener! Sans oublier la variation constante de «on peut payer par interac» et «non, ici on né peut pas payer par interac, désolé notre gerante veut pas.»
Tant qu’à être dans ce quartier là, allez donc au Dieu du Ciel ou le Vice et Versa à quelques coins de rue pour des vraies bonnes bières et un service tellement plus courtois!

Some of the beers are quite good, while others are below average. Food was Ok but pricey for what you got. Music is WAY too loud! If you want service you better sit at the bar.

Nice open place. The music is VERY loud. We liked the beer, especially the Van Horne IPA. The food though, is very average. Not awful, but lacking flavour and freshness. So, good place for a good beer, but for the food, you have many interesting options nearby…

Met some friends here for a beer. The place seemed ok. Nothing too special. It was almost a 3* but it’s proximity to St. Viator Bagels made me give it 4*. Good way to follow up drinks here.

Bonne bière. Belle deco! Oeuvres d’art sur leur mur (talent de mtl) mais le gros point fort la table de ping pong dans le fond du bar!!! Music un peu plate mais bon…

Génial. Ça fait des années que je fréquente ce brewpub et je dois dire qu’ils me réservent toujours une belle suprise à chque visite. Une fois, je suis rentrée, me suis assise au bar et l’accueil: un shooter avec les barstaff et les patrons autours du bar, en plus de deux dégustations généreuses juste parce que je tenais à goûter à deux des nouvelles bières avant d’acheter un bock! Ça c’est du bon service!!!
Outré ça, Helm s’est prouvé un brasseur local qui aime son quartier et l’exprime à travers ses bières tout en mettant le Mile End à l’honneur en nommant chaque nouvelle concoction après une rue dans le coin (Bloomfield, Clark, Fairmont, St-​Viateur, etc.). Ils aiment aussi stocker leur bar de produits locaux (là où c’est possible). Ils tiennent rhum, gin, vodka et cidres du Québec, ainsi que bon nombre d’alcools fait ailleurs au Canada.
Si non, mon seul ick est certains membres du staff devraient avoir une meilleure connaissance de la bière et des porocédés. Mais si non, overall, ils ont mon sceau d’approbation!

The cider I’m sipping on is delicious, the prices not too bad and the décor is lovely. But the staff spends too much time tending to the crowd at the bar and not on the tables. If not for the service I’d make this my new hang, but alas — I like not waiting 30 minutes after being left a menu for a waitress to come back.

Yep I’m gonna go with A-​OK. It should have everything going for it, homemade beer, an emphasis throughout the menu on local fresh product, nice wide windows so you can sit right on Bernard near Parc Ave, not too dim or bright, local and nice imports on tap, but Helm has never really super appealed to this particular crew mate. I’ve given it a try and I no doubt will again, and I’ll keep an open mind I swear. But something feels cold, and something in the beer flavor was off or flat last time I was there, and the chairs cradled me oddly, and though the bar was not busy the expanse between window and bar was large enough, and the server focused on the folks immediately around the bar, to make me feel a little lost, drowning not waving, looking for the tab.

Good place for after work pints and yummy appies, dangerous place if you make friends with the staff. Our waitress was super attentive and knowledgeable and about all I remember from my last night there were: flames, shots, table kind of on fire. It… was…awesome.

Helm was dead on a Sunday night just after Canada day. It was rainy and a bit cold, so it wasn’t the best time to be outside. We stopped into Helm for some Sangria and Salmon Ceviche. The Sangria was meh, but let me tell you. The Salmon Ceviche was so good… I mean, delectable, I am craving it now. My friend and I ordered one each… and then we ordered another EACH.
The service was a bit spotty, but part of that was probably because the waiter didn’t really speak English, the other part is because he just wasn’t very timely.

Acronyme pour Houblon, Eau, Levure et Malt, les 4 ingrédients essentiels à la confection d’une bière, qu’elle soit bonne ou mauvaise. En tout cas, l’absence de goût né m’a jamais autant déconcerté qu’ici. Je m’attendais au moins à y boire une bière potable, sachant que je me retrouvais dans un broue-​pub artisanal portant un nom aussi louangeur. Eh bien celle que j’ai choisie en tout cas n’était pas plus stimulante que le mauvais jeu de mot écrit sur le tableau: «Une blonde facile? «. Facile… Évidemment que ma blonde était facile, elle né goûtait strictement rien. Amère déception…remarque, c’est un peu de ma faute, j’avais été prévenu… C’est rare que je vais me plaindre d’un verre surdimensionné, qui en l’occurrence, aurait pu se qualifier de pinte, mais heureusement qu’un bol de mini bretzels gratuits m’accompagnait durant ma dégustation, car j’ai dû me saler plus d’une fois la bouche pour combler une soif quelque peu forcée. Voilà le mot: soif. Bière de soif sans caractère. «Toutes nos bières contiennent plus ou moins 5% d’alcool «, ai-​je pu lire sur le menu… Ah bon… Propos un peu élusifs non…
J’ose espérer que la rousse et la noire ont un peu plus à offrir. Ceci dit, né surtout pas prendre la blonde, qui est pourtant issue d’un mélange potentiellement intéressant (orge pâle et seigle bio malté). Une blanche, une cream ale, une dorée au miel ainsi que la bière mystère du brasseur (bière du moment) s’ajoutent à la liste. Levures et houblons majoritairement allemands. On a aussi parfois le droit à des bières fugaces (invitées); l’APA (Americain Pale Ale) des Trois Mousquetaires était pour un temps disponible… Quelques bières commerciales sont offertes: Carlsberg, Guinness et Kilkenny…
Enfin bref, la brasserie se veut être un lieu branché, empreint d’une ambiance très urbaine et «propre», relativement bruyant (la musique force à hausser le ton). Le décor, pratiquement tout faite de bois (noyer et érable), ainsi que l’immense bar central en U, viennent ajouter un certain cachet.
Le Helm offre une cuisine exemplaire, et c’est ici que la place peut se reprendre. Le menu varie au fil des saisons et tente de favoriser le plus possible les produits du terroir québécois. On a le droit à de belles propositions, allant de la soupe à l’oignon gratinée au tartare de bœuf. Tapas et autres «cochonailles» d’ici combleront plusieurs genres de gourmandise.
–DJ du jeudi au samedi

Ce brouepub de la rue Bernard est une découverte pour moi qui croyais connaître toutes les micro-​brasseries de l’île de Montréal. Aussi, je n’ai pas été impressionné par les bières brassées sur place qui, malgré qu’elles soient bonnes, n’offrent rien d’original. J’ai goûté leur rousse et leur blonde et j’ai trouvé qu’elles étaient du niveau de celles brassées par les 3 brasseurs; bien faites, mais sans personnalité. Donc, comme bar de quartier, avec sa bière maison et son décor boisé, il s’agit d’un super établissement que je fréquenterais sûrement si j’habitais à quelques pas. Cependant, si vous n’habitez pas Outremont, ce prouepub né vaut pas forcément le déplacement.

If I were the type to make puns, I would say «Who is at the helm of Helm?» But I’m not. And I already know the answer.
First the good points. Helm has a really cool décor. Nice atmosphere. Great location on Bernard.
Slow service to the point of being annoying. We walk in. No one says a word, no one attempts to seat us or tell us to seat ourselves for a good five minutes, despite not being crowded at all.
Something like this is so typical we ended up getting into a discussion of all the places in Montréal where there is something approaching good service. I think we ended up with five or six.
I digress.
We order our food and the two things on the menu I wanted, they were out of. Not so great for a Saturday night at seven, with such a limited menu. Especially when they talked up the salmon has being house smoked. Sounded great. Next time, make more than two plates of it.
They were also out of my companion’s wine selection too, though it was still written on the chalkboard– the server said she’d get around to wiping it off. She never did.
Food came within a reasonable amount of time. Check took forever. I didn’t think it was possible to not pick up on people who have their heads craned Exorcist-​style to get your attention for the bill, but I guess flirting with the guy at bar is more important than a decent tip.
As for the food: The asian duck salad was heavy on the vinegar, heavy on the cranberries and juniper/​five spice dressing to the point of it being a psychedelic soaking mess.
However, The deer burger was amazing. Absofreakinglutely amazing.
So would i go back? Sure. I’d go back for the atmosphere alone. The bar stools, the wooden split level floors the lighting. All very, very nice.
But I would go back assuming they were out of something I wanted, and on a rare day where waiting a half hour for the check wouldn’t bother me.

This is a great place to have a chill beer with friends in a really cool atmosphere. Not only does the place have good beer, but they have a full kitchen and serve up some tasty looking food. I’ve had the beef tartar here and can definitely vouch for it… if you’re looking for a new place to try, consider Helm!