debian/changelog

-emperor (1.0.0-beta.19+dfsg-1) UNRELEASED; urgency=medium
+emperor (1.0.0~beta.19+dfsg-1) UNRELEASED; urgency=medium
 
   * Initial release (Closes #<bug>)
       TODO: add doc/source/sphinxext/numpydoc to Files-Exclude

debian/watch

 version=4
-opts="repacksuffix=+dfsg,dversionmangle=s/\+dfsg//g,repack,compression=xz" \
+opts="uversionmangle=s/-beta/~beta/,repacksuffix=+dfsg,dversionmangle=s/\+dfsg//g,repack,compression=xz" \
    https://github.com/biocore/emperor/tags .*/v?(\d\S+)\.tar\.gz