diff --git a/.github/workflows/build-apache-beam.yml b/.github/workflows/build-apache-beam.yml
index 79a7183315a..9fa54c89bb4 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/build-apache-beam.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/build-apache-beam.yml
@@ -76,6 +76,16 @@ jobs:
           # sdist on PyPI ships without them for the same reason.
           cp ../../LICENSE ../../NOTICE ../../LICENSE.python .
 
+          # setup.py's own module-level `import pkg_resources` (2.61.0's era)
+          # breaks under today's latest setuptools, which no longer ships it;
+          # flink's own build-system.requires caps the same way for the same
+          # reason. PIP_BUILD_CONSTRAINT covers the isolated build env `build`
+          # creates for the sdist hook; PIP_CONSTRAINT is the belt-and-suspenders
+          # match for anything installed outside it.
+          echo "setuptools<82" > /tmp/build-constraint.txt
+          export PIP_CONSTRAINT=/tmp/build-constraint.txt
+          export PIP_BUILD_CONSTRAINT=/tmp/build-constraint.txt
+
           pip install -U build
           python -m build --sdist
 
@@ -101,6 +111,14 @@ jobs:
         # cp314t dropped: upstream's own build_wheels.yml matrix never builds
         # it (no free-threading support declared for Beam's Cython extensions).
         python: ["cp312", "cp313", "cp314"]
+        exclude:
+          # 2.61.0 is the newest release still inside apache-flink's declared
+          # apache-beam<=2.61.0 window; it predates cp313 (and upstream itself
+          # never shipped a wheel past cp312 for it).
+          - version: "2.61.0"
+            python: cp313
+          - version: "2.61.0"
+            python: cp314
 
     env:
       APACHE_BEAM_VERSION: ${{ matrix.version }}
diff --git a/docs/packages/apache-beam.yaml b/docs/packages/apache-beam.yaml
index 36e43994fb7..b58fb9659e6 100644
--- a/docs/packages/apache-beam.yaml
+++ b/docs/packages/apache-beam.yaml
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ package-name: apache-beam
 source-code: https://github.com/apache/beam
 license: Apache License, Version 2.0
 versions:
+- version: 2.61.0
 - version: 2.75.0
   tag: apache-beam-v2.75.0-20260911103533
   files: