How long can beer be in secondary?

Hi all. I'm back.

As my title suggest, how long can beer stay in secondary? For one thing leading to another my beer ended up sitting in secondary for about close to 1month now. Possibly another few more days. How long could I possibly leave it on secondary safely? What is longest time has anyone else left their beer on secondary?

I saw somewhere people flavoring their beer on secondary. Isn't that kinda dangerous? contamination and all. Or is it only certain kind of things I can throw in to flavor the beer on secondary.

you've got no worries

in most cases secondary is just for clearing your beer before you bottle/keg, i dont think there is such thing as 'too long in secondary' so you are golden buddy.

Years. I've heard of people keeping imperials or barleywines in secondary for over a year with no ill effects.

In two weeks I drank 5 gallons of porter that I had sitting in a secondary fermenter for about 4 months. I am so sad that it is gone, but so happy that it tasted so good. It was about 8% abv and tasted so smooth, I cant even begin to talk about it. It was a bit filling though, you could skip dinner and get down 3 a night, but that was more than enough.

Higher Abv and beers with more hops do better sitting for a long time, don't worry about it and drink a beer.

Since I keg from the fermenter, I guess you could say my 2003 barley wine has been in 'secondary' since May, 2003.