Leaving beer in secondary for too long?

I brewed my second beer, the Smashing Pumpkin Ale from NB, a few weeks ago. I racked it into secondary and added about a teaspoon an a half of pumpkin pie spice. It's been sitting in there for close to 3 weeks now, since I don't have enough bottles left over from my first brew to bottle it all. Would this be a problem? I know you're not supposed to dry hop for more than a week, but would leaving pumpkin pie spice in too long be a problem as well?

Huntmaster said:

I brewed my second beer, the Smashing Pumpkin Ale from NB, a few weeks ago. I racked it into secondary and added about a teaspoon an a half of pumpkin pie spice. It's been sitting in there for close to 3 weeks now, since I don't have enough bottles left over from my first brew to bottle it all. Would this be a problem? I know you're not supposed to dry hop for more than a week, but would leaving pumpkin pie spice in too long be a problem as well?

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The flavors will be just more robust. I think it will be awesome.

In most cases there's really no such thing as "leaving a beer in secondary too long." The purpose of a secondary is to bulk condition/clear. Depending on the gravity beer's can be left in secondary for years. For example I have a 17% abv barleywine that sat in secondary for close to 2 years and is now in an oak barrel. It won't even be consumed for another 2.5 years.

You'll find that often the longer you condition beers, the better they will be. Especially higher gravity ones, and things like Pumpkin beers with a lot of stuff going on, that you want the flavors to come together.