diff --git a/check_elasticsearch b/check_elasticsearch
index a1d39a2..34e9558 100755
--- a/check_elasticsearch
+++ b/check_elasticsearch
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env python
 
+import re
 import urllib2
 
 from nagioscheck import NagiosCheck, UsageError
@@ -612,9 +613,9 @@ def get_json(uri):
 
 
 def version(version_string):
-    """Accept a typical version string (ex: 1.0.1) and return a tuple
-    of ints, allowing for reasonable comparison."""
-    return tuple([int(i) for i in version_string.split('.')])
+    """Accept a typical version string (ex: 1.0.1 or 5.0.0-alpha1) and return a
+    tuple of ints, allowing for reasonable comparison."""
+    return tuple([int(re.findall(r'^\d+', i)[0]) for i in version_string.split('.')])
 
 
 if __name__ == '__main__':