diff --git a/circle.yml b/circle.yml
index dad5df83ec38..9ff6c2db10d2 100644
--- a/circle.yml
+++ b/circle.yml
@@ -24,7 +24,8 @@ general:
 
 deployment:
   release:
-    tag: /(([a-z]+)-)?([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+)/
+    # See "scripts/circleci_tagged_pkg.py" for info on REGEX
+    tag: /(([a-z]+)-)*([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+)/
     owner: GoogleCloudPlatform
     commands:
       - pip install --upgrade twine
diff --git a/scripts/circleci_tagged_pkg.py b/scripts/circleci_tagged_pkg.py
index 0d6b7a3485dd..ba7c99f522d8 100644
--- a/scripts/circleci_tagged_pkg.py
+++ b/scripts/circleci_tagged_pkg.py
@@ -24,11 +24,16 @@
 import sys
 
 
-RE_TXT = r'^((?P<pkg>[a-z]+)-)?([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+)$'
-TAG_RE = re.compile(RE_TXT)
+TAG_RE = re.compile(r"""
+    ^
+    (?P<pkg>
+        (([a-z]+)-)*)            # pkg-name-with-hyphens- (empty allowed)
+    ([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+)  # Version x.y.z (x, y, z all ints)
+    $
+""", re.VERBOSE)
 TAG_ENV = 'CIRCLE_TAG'
 ERROR_MSG = '%s env. var. not set' % (TAG_ENV,)
-BAD_TAG_MSG = 'Invalid tag name: %s. Expected ' + RE_TXT
+BAD_TAG_MSG = 'Invalid tag name: %s. Expected pkg-name-x.y.z'
 _SCRIPTS_DIR = os.path.dirname(__file__)
 ROOT_DIR = os.path.abspath(os.path.join(_SCRIPTS_DIR, '..'))
 
@@ -52,7 +57,7 @@ def main():
     if pkg_name is None:
         print(ROOT_DIR)
     else:
-        pkg_dir = pkg_name.replace('-', '_')
+        pkg_dir = pkg_name.rstrip('-').replace('-', '_')
         print(os.path.join(ROOT_DIR, pkg_dir))