diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index b030ab70be..979c39ff37 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -1,3 +1,21 @@
+Release 1.6 beta2 (in development)
+==================================
+
+Incompatible changes
+--------------------
+
+Deprecated
+----------
+
+Features added
+--------------
+
+Bugs fixed
+----------
+
+Testing
+--------
+
 Release 1.6 beta1 (released Apr 24, 2017)
 =========================================
 
diff --git a/sphinx/__init__.py b/sphinx/__init__.py
index b8202ee4df..a071097da2 100644
--- a/sphinx/__init__.py
+++ b/sphinx/__init__.py
@@ -34,13 +34,13 @@ if 'PYTHONWARNINGS' not in os.environ:
 warnings.filterwarnings('ignore', "'U' mode is deprecated",
                         DeprecationWarning, module='docutils.io')
 
-__version__ = '1.6b1'
-__released__ = '1.6b1'  # used when Sphinx builds its own docs
+__version__ = '1.6+'
+__released__ = '1.6'  # used when Sphinx builds its own docs
 
 # version info for better programmatic use
 # possible values for 3rd element: 'alpha', 'beta', 'rc', 'final'
 # 'final' has 0 as the last element
-version_info = (1, 6, 0, 'beta', 1)
+version_info = (1, 6, 0, 'beta', 2)
 
 package_dir = path.abspath(path.dirname(__file__))