Froth and Bubbles will bring at least 120 different beers and ciders from at least 35 breweries to town on August 23-24.

The festival is the joint creation of Illawarra Brewing Company operations manager Dave McGrath and event producer Robert Gunn, who organised last year’s Christmas on Crown event in the mall.

Mr McGrath said it was inspired by going to other festivals and thinking, from a brewery’s perspective, how to make things easier.

So they will be supplying all the bars and equipment, which he said would allow a number of smaller breweries who usually couldn’t afford to go to festivals to take part.

That means a lot of beers that have never been sighted in the city.

Mr McGrath said he knew there was a market for such a large festival after running a trial event at the Illawarra Brewery in August last year.

‘‘We trialled it with a 20-tap takeover last year at the brewery bar,’’ Mr McGrath said.

‘‘We got 20 kegs from all over the place, just to see if Wollongong was ready for that sort of thing. We were greeted with open arms and had to do two sessions to get all the people in who wanted to come and try the beers.’’

As well as the beers, there will be beer and food matching and live interviews with brewers shown on the big screens at the entertainment centre.

Mr McGrath is expecting more than 5000 people to attend over the weekend, some of whom will travel from Sydney and further afield.

One of the key aims of the festival is to appeal to a broad range of people, not just the beer geeks.

‘‘We’re trying to bring some real different beers to appeal to the aficionados who know what they like,’’ he said.

‘‘There will still be something there for them to try but there’s also going to be entry-level beers for people.

‘‘The journey into craft beer is as deep as you want to go.’’

Tickets are scheduled to go on sale next week. For more information, visit: frothandbubbles.com.au.