diff --git a/releases/v1.2.0-beta.1.toml b/releases/v1.2.0-beta.1.toml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..19dc4b1b1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/releases/v1.2.0-beta.1.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+# commit to be tagged for new release
+commit = "HEAD"
+
+project_name = "containerd"
+github_repo = "containerd/containerd"
+match_deps = "^github.com/(containerd/[a-zA-Z0-9-]+)$"
+
+# previous release
+previous = "v1.1.0"
+
+pre_release = true
+
+preface = """\
+After two major releases of containerd, we have brought back the beta releases to
+introduce a new runtime interface and new APIs. The 1.2 release will be fully
+backwards compatible and has no API breakage. The API additions included in
+this release are focused on making containerd more extensible and cover more
+user cases.
+
+### New V2 Runtime
+
+A new v2 runtime has been added with a stable gRPC interface for managing
+containers through external shims.
+
+This allows runtime authors to easily integrate with containerd over a stable
+API.
+
+Various runtimes can be selected on a per container basis using the `WithRuntime` opt
+or to test via ctr `ctr run --runtime io.containerd.runc.v1`.
+
+[Documentation](https://github.com/containerd/containerd/blob/master/runtime/v2/README.md)
+
+### New Proxy Plugins
+
+A new proxy plugin configuration has been added to allow external snapshotters
+be connected to containerd using gRPC.
+
+[Documentation](https://github.com/containerd/containerd/blob/master/PLUGINS.md)
+
+### Managed /opt directory
+
+A new `Install` method on the containerd client allows users to publish host level
+binaries using standard container build tooling and container distribution tooling
+to download containerd related binaries on their systems.
+
+This can be used for v2 runtime authors to get their runtime shims on an existing
+containerd system. It can also be used to install `runc` and other related tools.
+
+```bash
+> ctr content fetch docker.io/crosbymichael/runc:latest
+> ctr install docker.io/crosbymichael/runc:latest
+```
+
+[Documentation](https://github.com/containerd/containerd/blob/master/docs/managed-opt.md)
+
+### API Changes
+
+Minor API additions"""
+
+# notable prs to include in the release notes, 1234 is the pr number
+[notes]
+
+[breaking]
+
+[rename_deps]
+	[rename_deps.ttrpc]
+	old = "github.com/stevvooe/ttrpc"
+	new = "github.com/containerd/ttrpc"
diff --git a/version/version.go b/version/version.go
index a580a1b45..23f5da29c 100644
--- a/version/version.go
+++ b/version/version.go
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ var (
 	Package = "github.com/containerd/containerd"
 
 	// Version holds the complete version number. Filled in at linking time.
-	Version = "1.2.0-beta.0+unknown"
+	Version = "1.2.0-beta.1+unknown"
 
 	// Revision is filled with the VCS (e.g. git) revision being used to build
 	// the program at linking time.