ABITA SPRINGS, LA. — If it weren't for the beer, not many visitors would know about this village on Lake Pontchartrain's North Shore.

Abita Springs' beer is a staple in nearby New Orleans, and folks drive here to visit the brewery and sample the product in cafes like the Abita Springs Brew Pub.

(ENLARGE)

Built on a former railroad track, Tammany Trace is a 31-mile paved trail that draws bikers and hikers.

RENEE KIENTZ/St. Tammany Parish Tourist Commission (ENLARGE)

Visitors sit for a cool one at the Abita Springs Brew Pub, which serves local beer that's popular with residents in nearby New Orleans. In the town's 1880s heyday, thousands visited area springs. Concerts, restaurants and a wacky museum offer diversions now.

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But beer isn't the only attraction in and around tiny Abita. Many artists have settled a few miles away in the city of Covington, which has an old-time downtown with one-of-a-kind shops and restaurants as well as a modern strip with malls and motels. Mandeville, on the lakeshore, has a lovely waterfront park with a great view of the 24-mile-long Lake Ponchartrain Causeway south to New Orleans.

Abita Springs does possess some unusual attractions.

Hikers and bikers come to Abita to explore Tammany Trace, a 31-mile-long paved path that runs from Covington to Slidell. Built on a former railroad track, it's the only rails-to-trails project in Louisiana.

The Trace runs past the new Abita Tourism Plaza, completed this spring at the trailhead. The new Abita Springs Trailhead Museum opened in April with a Smithsonian Traveling Exhibit on roots music in America. It's the first stop in Louisiana for the exhibit, drawn here by the presence of the Abita Springs Opry.

The exhibit moved on in May, but the Opry does six concerts a year in the Abita Town Hall — three times in the spring, three in the fall. Get to the Town Hall early on concert nights and you can listen to old-time musicians jamming on the porch. Louisiana roots music is played with guitars, mandolins, fiddles, dobros and other instruments, and none use electric amplifiers.

Also part of the Tourism Plaza is the original pavilion that stood over the springs of Abita. In the 1880s, the heyday of Abita, thousands came to "take the waters" and stay in the town's hotels.

The springs long since have been capped and none of the hotels have survived. The imposing two-story pavilion, however, remained and was moved to the new plaza this year.

Another reason to visit Abita is the Abita Mystery House, probably the strangest museum you'll ever see. It's full of anything the proprietor, John Preble, has decided to display.

Old circuit boards line the ceiling, bottle caps are plastered all over the doors, and there are stuffed gators with dog heads, stuffed fish with gator heads, and walls inlaid with broken pieces of plates and tiles. The gift shop carries books like "The Compleat Cockroach." Early cellphones mounted on door jambs fascinate teenagers, according to Preble, who is also a talented artist.

While browsing, I came across an old Claire Veaux fortune-telling machine that reminded me of the one in the Tom Hanks movie "Big," and I even tried my hand on an Aztec pinball machine from the 1940s, scoring only a meager 82,920 points.

So where does Preble get all these outlandish displays?

"People bring me stuff all the time," he says with a smile.

Meanwhile in nearby Covington, visitors will find several good restaurants, among them Ristorante del Porto, named the best Italian restaurant in the New Orleans area by the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Other notable hangouts include the St. Johns Coffee House, Columbia Street Tap Room and Heiner Brau micro brewery, while A.J. Smith's Sons, a venerable general store and museum, displays such necessities as a kerosene dispenser, wagon wheels and dugout canoe.

Covington, too, has just built a new Trailhead Plaza for the bikers and hikers on the Tammany Trace.

Back in Abita, a good way to end the day is to order its eponymous Abita Sampler at the Brew Pub. You'll get six small glasses filled with different hometown brews, among them Purple Haze, Turbodog and Andy Gator. It goes well with a hamburger topped with English cheese.

Information: St. Tammany Parish Tourist Commission, 1-800-634-9443 or www.louisiananorthshore.com.