diff --git a/Library/Homebrew/test/test_versions.rb b/Library/Homebrew/test/test_versions.rb
index 2a1a33a598..307bf6ead8 100644
--- a/Library/Homebrew/test/test_versions.rb
+++ b/Library/Homebrew/test/test_versions.rb
@@ -203,6 +203,10 @@ class VersionParsingTests < Homebrew::TestCase
     assert_version_detected "0.7.1", "https://codeload.github.com/gsamokovarov/jump/tar.gz/v0.7.1"
   end
 
+  def test_elasticsearch_alpha_style
+    assert_version_detected "5.0.0-alpha5", "https://download.elastic.co/elasticsearch/release/org/elasticsearch/distribution/tar/elasticsearch/5.0.0-alpha5/elasticsearch-5.0.0-alpha5.tar.gz"
+  end
+
   def test_gloox_beta_style
     assert_version_detected "1.0-beta7", "http://camaya.net/download/gloox-1.0-beta7.tar.bz2"
   end
diff --git a/Library/Homebrew/version.rb b/Library/Homebrew/version.rb
index 60eb6b5712..e2085a8a60 100644
--- a/Library/Homebrew/version.rb
+++ b/Library/Homebrew/version.rb
@@ -340,8 +340,8 @@ class Version
     m = /-((?:\d+\.)*\d+(?:[abc]|rc|RC)\d*)$/.match(stem)
     return m.captures.first unless m.nil?
 
-    # e.g. foobar-4.5.0-beta1, or foobar-4.50-beta
-    m = /-((?:\d+\.)*\d+-beta\d*)$/.match(stem)
+    # e.g. foobar-4.5.0-alpha5, foobar-4.5.0-beta1, or foobar-4.50-beta
+    m = /-((?:\d+\.)*\d+-(?:alpha|beta|rc)\d*)$/.match(stem)
     return m.captures.first unless m.nil?
 
     # e.g. http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/libidn/libidn-1.29-win64.zip