Java Edition Beta

Beta is the current development phase in Minecraft. It was announced on Notch's blog on December 11, 2010 and released nine days later, on December 20, 2010. As well as some minor updates, the transition from Alpha saw a 50% price increase (therefore making the cost 25% off the full price), a change in the disclaimer (Notch removed the line that said "all future updates will be provided free of charge") and minor updates to the main website. Beta 1.2 was released on 13 January 2011, it included Cake which was added after Minecraft won the Mod DB 2010 "Indie Game of the Year" award.

Version 1.4_01, which includes more natural sheep colors and Slower movement in water, also includes:

In Beta 1.4, there was a bug that prevented the spawn position to be reset. This has been fixed.
 * Tameable wolves
 * Cookies
 * Sleeping in a bed now resets your spawn position
 * New Minecraft logo
 * Holding shift while climbing will hang on to the ladder
 * Spiders will no longer trample crops

For full changes, see Beta version history.

Current Version

 * Beta 1.4_01 (Released April 5, 2011)

End Date
Notch said in a recent blog post that he and Mojang plan to release the "full version" of Minecraft on November 11th, 2011 (11/11/11). They will still be updating it, but it will not be in beta anymore.