Can beer sit too long?

What is the shelf life of bottled beer? I have a nice little dark closet in teh basement I plan on using for storage. What about letting it sit in the secondary? Is there such a thing as to long? Don't get me wrong, I plan on knocking them back as fast as I can, but I plan on several batches....

#1. Several batches..you will be amazed how fast they actually go. Brew alot and brew often

#2. I have heard everything from 9months-2+years for a shelf life. Most of my beers start to decline past there prime in about 6months for my lighter beers. The stout I did as my very first batch in October 07 is still wonderfull, although now down to (2) 12oz bottles. Everything I have seen is that if you leave a beer in secondary it cant hurt it, I have gone as long as 4 months with a mead that is still in secondary.

I find low gravity beers are about done after 6 months. But go really big and years won't hurt.

In my experience, 9-12 months is about the limit for a 4-5% beer.

Agreed-


I have be able to keep my 7+ percent beers for 1yr+ and my lower grav. 5% have peaked at max 6-7 mo..

so just brew high grav and you will never have problems... er.. um.. at least with them lasting