You could modify the practice of Major.Minor.Build.Revision to something more like Major.Minor.Release.Revision. See examples:
1.0.0.0 - First Release
1.0.0.123 - Beta build approaching second release
1.0.1.0 - Next release
1.0.1.234 - Beta build approaching third release
1.1.0.0 - Third release
etc..