ADELAIDE-based brewer Coopers has been named the world's top family business for 2011 in a poll by a UK magazine.

London-based magazine CampdenFB, which focuses on high-value family-owned businesses, said Coopers had topped an online poll of readers, ahead of Danish-owned Lego, Kenyan retail business Nakumatt, Estee Lauder and US car maker Ford.

CampdenFB editor David Bain said Coopers was a "worthy winner" and an example of revitalisation of a family business with an iconic brand.

"Coopers is a testament to the visionary management of Tim and Glenn Cooper - and indeed the whole Cooper family over the many generations that it has existed," he said.

The magazine noted that Coopers had "the support of the local Australia press" which encouraged Australians to vote for the brewer in the online poll.

Coopers, which has about four per cent of the Australian beer market, became Australia's biggest brewer this year when Foster's was taken over by Anglo-South African company SABMiller.